Women in India, there is a new gadget in town to protect yourself from sexual predators – ‘Samiidha Bhavani’ – a device that can serve you as a baton, a stun gun and a Samurai sword. It also has features like pepper spray, a panic button and a pen knife.
Named after the Hindu goddess of valor, this device is a brain child of Pavan Kohli, a Pune-based orthopedic doctor who claims that this is India’s first fully legal and comprehensive self-defense product for women, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The device weighs 1.5 kilograms and at its full extent, stretches up to two feet and three inches, close to half the length of a cricket bat. However, once it is contracted, it shrinks down to nine inches and can easily fit into a handbag like a water bottle.
In the event of an attack, there are buttons on the device that can convert it into a baton, sword, pen knife and even has an in-built strobe light to blind the assailant for few minutes. The baton’s stun-gun function can inflict a non-lethal electric shock that would throw an attacker back a couple of feet.
The pepper spray can attack up to 10 people and is 25 times stronger than a normal chili spray, Dr Kohli told the Wall Street Journal. In addition to that, the product also has a panic button feature that is capable of sending SOS messages to five pre-loaded cell phone numbers. As soon as the button is pressed, the person’s GPS coordinates will be sent to the primary contact as listed.
Here is a video describing the functions and working of the device:
In addition to the self-defense utilities, the device also consists of a needle and sewing thread along with some buttons, in case one of them on your shirt pops out. There are also a few safety pins as well as red vermillion powder.
“For office going girls….it is a multipurpose device… it’s anything what a woman wants for her dignity,” Dr Kohli said.
However, the product is still not in the market for women to purchase. Accroding to Dr Kohli, just a few prototypes are available for now and it cost him Rs 5,000 per unit to make. But he intends to sell it at less than Rs 1,000.
The Doctor is now looking for manufacturers to license his design patent and outlets to sell the product.