January 5, 2017
NEW DELHI — Police in the south Indian city of Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) have detained at least six suspects after video surfaced of a woman being assaulted and groped on a street on New Year’s Eve.
Gang rape sparks rage in India.
January 5, 2017
NEW DELHI — Police in the south Indian city of Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) have detained at least six suspects after video surfaced of a woman being assaulted and groped on a street on New Year’s Eve.
Gang rape sparks rage in India.
The video shows a woman getting off an auto-rickshaw late at night and walking down a street, pursued by two men on a scooter. They stop the scooter, one of the men approaches her and wraps his arms around her before appearing to try and kiss her and grope her.
The woman is seen resisting the attack as the man drags her toward his friend on the scooter while reportedly trying to rip some of her clothing off. Eventually, the man throws her to the ground before getting back onto the scooter with his companion and riding away.
During the attack, which lasts less than a minute, other men on bikes are seen nearby stopping to witness the incident, but doing nothing to stop it.
The video of the incident was captured by a security camera installed on a house in East Bengaluru. The owners shared the video with police and media, on the basis of which police registered a case and launched their investigation.
The woman has not come forward to police and remains unidentified. Police have said they’re trying to identify her.
Police in Bengaluru were already investigating an alleged mass molestation on the same night at a different place in the city.
Indian media reported several women were sexually assaulted when a crowd of thousands of young men and women gathered in the city center to welcome the new year. Reports say several men, some of them drunk, began groping and grabbing women in the crowd, despite a significant police presence.
Though no woman has come forward to report anything from that incident, police say they have “credible evidence” of molestations, and are investigating.
Bengaluru Police Commissioner Praveen Sood said on his Twitter account that his officers have examined video from 45 different cameras as part of that investigation.
Bengaluru, a sprawling metropolis sometimes referred to as India’s Silicon Valley for the number of technology companies based there, has been considered a safe city for women.
“We can’t allow such shameful act of #MassMolestation go unpunished. Bangaluru is a vibrant city & women must be safe in a civilized society,” India’s Minister of State for Home, Kiren Rijiju, said in a tweet.
Pictures of women trying to avoid the alleged assaults on New Year’s Eve, and the video of the assault on the woman in East Benagluru have spread fast on social media in India.
The alleged public sexual assaults have outraged Indians, who have been forced to confront the nation’s problem with attitudes toward women since the brutal 2012 gang-rape of a woman on a bus made international headlines.
The home minister of India’s Karnataka state, where Bengaluru is located, has come under fire for appearing to blame the female victims of the mass molestation incident.
“They (Indian women) try to copy the West, not only in their mind-set but even in their dressing,” G Parameshwara was quoted as saying. “So some disturbance; some girls are harassed; these kind of things do happen.”
After his remarks sparked outrage, the minister has said his words were “interpreted out of context.”
However, it would not be the first time an Indian politician has blamed the victim of a sexual assault for the crime.
An image from private security camera video recorded in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2017, appears to show a woman being sexually assaulted by a man in East Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore). The video was captured by a resident’s home security camera and handed over to police
Courtesy: CBS News
