The News Minute | November 27, 2014 | 01:05 pm ISTSeveral cases of sexual assault in Bengaluru against children, many allegedly having taken place within school premises, have prompted the city police and other authorities to come with measures to prevent such incidents in the future.Taking cue from reports from the 'IT capital of India', the Mysuru Police have come up with a novel idea- an initiative which is based on the ‘prevention is better than cure’ model.Police stations in Mysuru have adopted schools, both private and government, in a bid to raise awareness about child sexual abuse and to also to make sure adequate measures are in place to prevent such incidents in the city.“All police stations in Mysuru have adopted schools in their respective areas. We thought of the initiative after several cases of child sexual abuse in Bengaluru schools were reported in the recent months. We do not want a repeat of what happened in Bengaluru”, said MA Saleem , Mysuru City Police Commissioner.“We are helping schools to implement safety guidelines in schools. Our men also patrol the schools in the morning and once after school gets over. We are also planning to deploy more women police officers in schools where girl students are relatively more in numbers”, he added.Father Vincent CV, Principal of De Paul in Mysuru, feels “It is a good initiative and there is no doubt about it”.When people know they are constantly under surveillance, it is less likely they will attempt any crime, he asserted.“Officials from the police department came to our school twice in the second week of November. They conducted an awareness class for both our teaching and non-teaching staff. Among other things they explained the sensitivity of the issue”, said Mr Vincent. The police also collected details of the school’s staff members and checked the premises, he added.It has been two weeks since the initiative was launched in Mysuru but other precautionary measures were put into gear quite some time ago.“We received a circular around three months back to take appropriate action to prevent any such incidents. We later came up with the idea of adopting schools and the 16 police stations in Mysuru began interacting with schools around 15 days ago”, said Udayagiri Police Inspector Srikanth. The Udayagiri police have adopted 51 schools- 34 private and 17 government.“Our aim is to avoid such incidents in Mysuru. We also want to send a strong message to potential culprits or eve teasers that we are monitoring the situation”, he stated.From regular patrolling in schools, to conducting awareness programmes for both schools and students, the Mysuru police is giving their best to ensure safety of children.“We want to build confidence in students as well, to make them more aware. Our children are happy with this initiative”, he said.