The sexual assault on the three Gandhinagar waitresses early on Friday now has a footnote. Two others in the house in Mariappanapalya in Bidadi also claim to have been abducted by the eight- or nine-member gang but they were not raped.
With fear and relief over having escaped from the gang’s clutches, the two women shared their traumatic experience with The Hindu on Friday evening.
“As soon as the door was opened, they barged into the house and threatened us with machetes. One of them was even wielding a pistol. We were asked not to make any noise,” said Asha (name changed) who had locked herself with four other women in the house, too scared to let anyone inside. Instead they chose to interact through a window.
Ransacked, robbed
Three among the eight of the residents of the house are married and one of them has children. “As soon as the men entered, they snatched our mobile phones and asked us to hand over our gold ornaments. They took away a TV set and a DVD player, among other valuables, all worth a few lakhs. They ransacked our home and even took away many of our clothes. Perhaps they assumed that we were making a lot of money. But we told them that we are just waitresses. We only earn about Rs. 6,000 or Rs. 7,000 a month,” one of the women said.
‘Did not yield’
Here, the story takes a curious turn. According to Ms. Asha, five and not three were abducted, and the gang members attempted to force themselves on two or three of them. “They took them to a room and tried to force themselves on them. However, they resisted, asking them to let go, and did not yield,” she said. Ms. Asha’s claim is contrary to the Ramanagaram police’s statement that three women were gang raped. Such a case was also filed based on the complaint of Purushotham, one of the two security guards at the house.
Told to pack
Providing the sequence of events of the early morning attack on them — most of which has been corroborated by the police — Ms. Asha said: “We were told to go with them for two days and they made us pack our suitcases. We were taken to another house [10 minutes away] in a car. One of the men said it was his sister’s house. We begged them to drop us to a bus-stand or to a railway station. They blindfolded us and took us near a bridge where they abandoned us. We hailed an auto and asked to be dropped near Nagarabhavi. As we did not have our phones, we borrowed one from a passerby and called up our employer and informed him of our helpless state.”
It has been only a few weeks since these women came to the city, but the incident has terrified them. The girls said that the gang had threatened to attack them again if they complained to the police. “We are very scared and haven’t slept all night. We want to go back and work and lead our lives normally. We just don’t want others to go through what we went through.”
Inconsistent: police
Asked to comment, a senior police official said the women’s statements were not consistent.
