181, Tamil Nadu’s emergency contact number for women in distress, has received 45,000 prank calls.

Listening to songs often serves as a stress buster at work, especially for those handling distress calls and offering counselling to harassed women. But it is certainly no music to one’s ears when a stranger calls up and belts out a filmi number with lewd lyrics. For counsellors handling the 181 helpline, Tamil Nadu’s exclusive emergency contact number for women in distress, though handling such perverts and pranksters has become a routine.

Since its launch in December 2018 by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, the helpline has received close to 45,000 prank calls by men who insist that the counsellors sing for them or listen to them singing. Some of them turn abusive and at times speak in a child’s tone to engage the counsellors.

The round-the-clock helpline, run by the Department of Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme, operates from the Amma Call Centre at Ambattur.

Till now, the five staffers, handling 11 connections, have answered over one lakh calls. Of them, over 7,520 calls pertained to domestic violence, alcoholism, extra-marital affairs, cybercrime and sexual harassment. Many callers also sought details of various government schemes. But a majority of the calls were by pranksters.

Abusive callers

“On an average, we get 60 prank calls a day. Sometimes the callers are very abusive. We pick every call thinking it is a genuine caller and disconnect it once we realise it is a prank call. The same miscreant calls from another number and troubles the staff. They mimic children and even ask us to sing songs,” said an employee.

Officials of the Social Welfare Department have now consolidated all the phone numbers from which they received such calls and handed it over to the city police for action. “There should be strict action against such miscreants as they are preventing a genuine caller from accessing the helpline. These men will not have the courage to call the police control room and abuse the staff,” said a senior official of the Social Welfare Department.

More staff sought

The helpline has sought more staff members to handle the calls. “It is essential considering the number of calls we are getting,” said V. Amuthavalli, Director, Social Welfare Department.