Ordeal follows her car being rear-ended by a motorcycle at DVG Road junction
The State machinery’s claims of protection to northeast Indians were laid hollow when a 32-year-old theatreperson from Manipur was groped and molested by a mob even as a traffic policeman beat her following an accident at the DVG Road junction in Basavanagudi Wednesday evening.
The woman, a theatre artiste and playwright, was driving home from work when she stopped at the traffic light at the junction. A speeding motorcycle rear-ended her car, damaging the bumper. When the woman got down to check the damage, the rider started abusing her using vulgar language. Soon a group of passersby joined him and started teasing and abusing her, she told The Hindu.
The terrified woman saw a traffic policeman standing across the road and rushed to him for help. To her utter shock, not only was he indifferent but he grabbed her by her shoulders and pushed her aside.
Encouraged by this, the mob started groping her. The traumatised woman said: “I tried to explain to the policeman that the rider was at fault, but he was rude.” She quoted the policeman as having told her, “You don’t know Kannada. You don’t belong to this place.” Worse still, he then turned to the erring rider and encouraged him to leave the scene. Through all this, the mob that surrounded her continued to humiliate her, the victim said in her complaint.
Not willing to let off the rider so easily, she mustered enough courage to physically stop the man leaving. At this, the policeman dragged her to the side and slapped her. The woman immediately took out her mobile phone and started taking pictures of the motorcycle rider. Her ordeal then turned worse, when the mob started pulling at her clothes and jeering at her.
While one among the crowd removed his shirt, another man, wearing a lungi, exposed himself, she said. Many in the mob made indecent gestures, she said. In the melee, the rider escaped.
Her trauma lasted some 15 minutes till a patrol vehicle reached the spot and the crowd melted away.
The woman then went to the Basavanagudi police station and filed a complaint.
Though the Basavanagudi police booked a case against the traffic constable, they refused to give his name.
Keywords: Basavanagudi police, sexual assault, police atrocity
recently my family was involved in an accident which was due to the car mal-functioning. Immediately a mob surrounded our car - we were unable to communicate as we did not speak Kannada. what became apparent was they wanted money and extract as much as they could from the situation. a few people were very aggressive and the cop on the scene didn't even bother to come forward. I've lived in Bangalore for a decade now and its the most shameful experience. with women and children in the car, one had no choice and there was no way one could even talk, but to pay whatever cash was in our pockets to the aggressive ones to let us
go even though it was not anyones fault and both the parties involved in the crash didnt have anything to say. there is a lot of lawlessness happening under the noses of the police who choose to ignore unless someone from the top has to call or a bribe is paid. it's becoming a
pathetic situation.
Where does region/place of work come when we are talking about basic
humanitarian aspects. How can women feel safe in the society after
seeing all this. I hope to see a better response from the police
station that she complained to. Peace!
Present day Bangalore is devoid of glorious Kannada culture and etiquette of yester years in which people used to apologize if one's foot came in contact with another even in a jam-packed bus inadvertently. Also, present day Kannada political leaders have no innovative ideas and stature less unlike Hanumanthayya. Present day B'lore needs better police. Officers of ASI cadre and above must only be posted for outside duties. Constabulary must be slowly dispensed with due to their poor qualifications and skills. They are fit only to handle auto drivers.
People should be made aware of the human biodiversity of our
country-India. We are a tremendous mixture of people with variations in culture. An historian told "an Indian can be as fair as a Scandinavian or as black as a negro". We have people who
have features of Caucasoid,negroid and mongoloid and a huge permutation and combination of all these three over the generations . Even within a region or an ethnic group we can have different colors and shades and features etc. Hence it is simply unreasonable and unfair to ill treat any one.That only leads to more social friction and regional divisions.When people are gladly approving bringing of various categories of people into mainstream why this intolerance towards North East ? They should be fully integrated and assimilated. In particular, of North eastern states one should think of long term consequences . The more such incidents take place sooner North east or a part of North east may become a part of china.
1.The picture of the constable is right there.Dismiss him.Period.
2.Many other sections can be invoked against him,like,outraging the
modesty of a woman.
3.People like him are the ones who tear the united fabric of this
nation.Give him the harshest punishment to set a precedent.
4.What happened to the fundamental right to work and stay at any place
within the territory of India?
5.People at THE HINDU please make sure to follow the story till the
constable is punished.
Will The Hindu follow up on this? Oflate we have seen so many scandals unearthed but none taken to conclusion. Can HINDU follow-up and expose this Traffic constable? It is time that people of his kind understand what freedom and democracy really mean. Enough of these simple minded medieveal mindset, its time we grow up and understand what tolerant civilized societies are.
really its a very disappointing to hear all this ,
wats happening guys,this india not a single state country or south country , seriously , even i have faced many problems like this.
Suspend the policeman!.
I dont know Kannada but i belong to Bangalore! The constable should be found and trashed black and blue for assaulting a woman. These are the same thugs that beat up a prominent Bangalore based DJ expressing his displeasure when the cops misbehaved with his wife. SICK
Even if there was action taken,whom all would it be taken on?would every person who traumatised her be punished?I seriously feel pity at my coutry's unity in shatters.
Why is this even news? Some of us expect exactly this from any mob anywhere in Karnataka that has all kinds of false pride in their superiority. Look at the shameless happy faces behind the policeman in the picture. They are the "mannina maga"s of Karnataka - out in full force. This is the exact type of sex depraved male monsters we produce in large numbers. These are all rapists waiting for an opportunity. I hope posters can be made of all the faces in this picture and put up in public places on a wall of shame. Not that it will make any difference to the rest, but hopefully their Kannada speaking families can be embarrassed a little for unleashing them upon this lady.
Couldn't believe that this happened in Bangalore, so called one of the most educated and cosmopolitan city in India. We pride ourselves in calling our land mother India and then we insult her in every way possible, sh-tting, pe-ing, polluting, deforesting, and encroaching to mention a few. For pride of our sister or ladies of our family, we will do anything but we don't respect other women. Shame on you Karnataka. I know not everyone should be blamed in K'taka but if you don't protest against such atrocities, you are supporting it even though you didn't participate in it.
It is shocking to know that law and order can break down so easily in
a cosmopolitan city like bengaluru. The regional bias against this
women is not related her gender. Today we have political parties whose
support base is regional or community based while some of these
parties may not encourage thoughts like hatred for other regions or
communities, we end up dividing our society based on unnecessary
identities. Therefore, we must educate our people and develop the
feeling of oneness. One way for harmony is by promoting cultural
interactions and sports nationally.
To make women feel safe in public, a strong message must be sent by
taking action against the molesters and the policeman involved in this
incident with the harshest punishment.
OK so what will happen to this constable and the mob. Can news media be on trail of this to make sure justice is served.
Wish appropriate action be taken again that traffic cop.
Is this Bangalore? Unbelievable. What are the stupid illiterate politicians doing to our country?? This is indeed a very vulgar and sad state of affairs. Its time for the good people of Bangalore city to rise and be counted..
Shame on us as residents of this city. Thankfully this lady has
taken the pictures of the rider who rear ended her vehicle. Also,
there are so many faces registered in the published photo behind
the constable. We trust our police will book all those lustful
faces and dismiss the traffic constable at the earliest. This
should be a lesson to those who involve in such uncivilized acts.
What else can make us feel pathetic!.. Ashamed that there was none in the city to rescue a common woman for 15 minutes from the insane crowd and the 'Glorified' traffic cop. The mob who surrounded the lady, she was neither seen by them as a common woman, nor a human being with her feelings.. the cop's attitude may be changed coz of the punishment, but the public... No hope at all
Its their inferiority complex that brings the language obsession to the core. This is one of the fall outs the IT boom has done to this city. Let the punishment of this cop send a clear message to anyone who thinks they can get away with such uncivilized behavior.
"You don know Kannada"....Why are you here ? I heard this question so many times from Traffic policeman...They were very particular about their language..Well...Let them love their language..But they don have any right to say " you are no belong here" or " why are you here"...Especially the policeman and Govt.offices...Worst..
I am dumbfounded and disgusted seeing what the so called Law Enforcing Agency, who are supposed to protect our citizens are rather encouraging crimes in India. No woman or man in any part of India should be discrimintaed in such a way. I wonder if the crowd present at the scene of the crime have mothers,sisters and daughters to go home to! The traffic police's name must be revealed and stern action taken for everyone like him to learn a lesson. I do not expect anything good from the other police personnels too.
Women are regularly harassed on the road and this is just one example. The rowdy elements including some police always take advantage where they can put their dirty hands on women. All the culprits in this case should be punished with their hands cut off and jailed for life.
This is extremely shocking and profoundly disturbing to say the least. Almost unbelievable and I can only hope that the truth is otherwise, but deeply fear that it is not.
This has deeply maimed my faith in my own city and my people. And on DVG road in Basasvangudi? What have we become? How low we have fallen - to become monsters of the worst imaginable kind. Reflects an abject and absolute failure of education and is a shame and affront to our culture - if there is any we can claim still exists. I can only hang my head now, but will be watching very keenly to see how this turns out.
The cop should be terminated and put behind bars immediately. All the culprits should be hanged.. shameless bunch of idiots.
Though I'm an Ex-Military the same kind of incident happened in kerala aswell. When I asked the conductor of a KSRTC bus refused to pay remaining balance of Rs.6/- even after I reached my stage and said "you are in kerala not in your own state(I'm not keralian). When I stopped the bus moving peoples surrounded in the bus supporting the conductor instead of condemning his act. This kind of incident shows India loosing its democracy.
This is not a isolated incident. There was a case when a after assault following a accident a victim approached a police station only to be told that - "you should not have spoken in Hindi".
Is human kind evolving, I wonder. What type of society are we going to? I wonder What can i do for her while sitting here except commenting and saying " it was a bad incident and should not happen" What right this society gives me , I wonder.
Look at their uniforms.They don't look like law enforcers nor they are
trained for it.They look like watchmen and behave like them.
Women have long been taken for granted,its time we stood up to this kind
of things and bring awareness to these law enforcers since the govt does
not bother educating them of basic human rights.
- Firstly, this is a pathetic demonstration of state of women in India. We, as fellow citizens have to go a long way in providing equal rights to women and stop abuse in any shape or form.
- Secondly, “You don’t know Kannada. You don’t belong to this place.” I pity his ignorance. Governments and Police departments should to put in place cultural tolerance training, Sexual Assault/Awareness training.
All praise to the Hindu for so succcintly reporting this outrageous incident.
I live abroad and this makes me ashamed to be an Indian. Thank God I gave up my Indian citizenship.
I'm born, bought up in Karnataka, and I condemn this henious act, women is beign disrespected first and police is going useless.
Who the hell gave the "AAM ADMI" the the rights to consider them as localites and others as outsiders..? Is this Independent India (or) Localized Goondas Raj..?The police should be suspended from his job for his lifetime..
No matter where, what and how - Womens should be secured and protected first because this is our country, if the Police does such a misbehave then associated Police must be bought to justice..
Local residers - Goonda Behaviour must be punished 100 times tougher than that of the outside terrosists, this is a internal disease and being supported by many.. and has to be stopped at any cost.
Something similar happened to a taxi driver in Hyderabad. He was waiting for us to pick up our dresses from the shop and a traffic police came and started hitting him. A mob gathered and hit him, taking his mobile phone and the money from his pocket! what a pity....
Look at the smile of those cowards...we should kick those irresponsible
idiots...
Just a few days ago the media was blowing that Bangalore is the Best Place to stay .............. shame on you Bangalreans .
I am very ashamed to see this happening. Are we not Indians? I dont understand the mentality of some people treating other people outside of their place as foreigners in India.
The Bangalore police should remove this constable from service immediately who failed to protect the citizens.
People take advantage of these situations to tease a woman instead of helping her. Not even one was there to help her even after finding who is at fault. If someone does this to your people in a different state, how will you react? Why are some very proud of their language without even being a decent human being first?
I think we need to introduce urgently or reiterate in history subject that all people in India are Indians and they can live anywhere they like in this country without being illtreated like this. How are we going to see our country make progress if we fight among ourselves internally?
I think we must teach our sisters, daughters, wives,mothers all our female
relatives martial arts and advice them to have pepper spray with them all
the time. Any way you can't expect any help from the police. At least,
these harassed women can make a quick getaway. Here, in any case those
rowdy bike riders were not going to apologize, forget about paying
compensation.
Bravo Mr. Policeman be ashamed of your behaviour you are supposed to be a Public Peace officer and help this lady whether shes from Manipur or Mangalore "First of all you Idiiot she is an Indian, and being an Indian she has the right to be in any Indian City she pleases irrespective whether she speaks the local language or not", and all you perverts who tried to take advantage of her shame on you hope your sisters and mothers one day go to Manipur and get the same treatment you meted to this poor helpless lady. It was courageous of her to take the photo of this degenerate and post it to the media be brave and dont back down lady the rest of India is with you -
what a shame bangalore !
I am out of words. What to write. Is this what our ancestors fought for to give us independence. What are we teaching to our children. Is this the future of India. Women harassment, racism. Too bad. Punishing one or 2 people will not solve the problem. We need proper education to eliminate the root cause. Unity in diversity that is what I was taught since childhood about India but I think we are losing all. Proper respect to women, equality is missing from Indian's male mind set. When will we learn, when will we change.
what trigger such incidents need to be examined. Prejudices and the (sub)conscious complexities need to be removed from our psyche(effort right from formative stages). This is one of those incidents that marks a dent on the indian identity. North easterners need no special treatment,we only want a normal sensible and humane interaction with the rest of the indian brethens..
We all see that there is a deterioration of humane behavior. This
incident and many others point towards the frustration of the public.
The anger is diverted towards the weak & unprotected. It has become a
common practice to err as a Mob.
Though involved offenders should be punished, it is not a long term
solution to the current plight of our country.
It remains with us , everyone who thinks we are losing our heritage
not the structures or buildings but the goodness, Kindness & our
natural sense of hospitality to come forward with a solution.
IMHO, the common man is deprived and hungry and he aware but is unable
to do anything about this, the building frustration causes in
tolerances and eventually is the cause for unpleasant behavior. We
have to collectively work for the betterment of human nature. Best
wishes.
Shame shame!!! Deplorable! Is this how women will be treated in India?
Open any newspaper and it's filled with such incidents from all over the
country. No place is safe for women! Wake up before it's too late.
A request to all the good Police men out there. Please make sure this
constable is taken to task. One rotten apple is all that it takes to
spoil the whole basket. Few police men like this constable make the
whole force look bad and that's really unfair. Making sure this
constable gets the due punishment would be a step in restoring public
confidence towards the Police force. Hopefully some kind of action is
taken against the people in the mob visible in this picture.
sick people, sick mentality, these people can't come out from the "gun, guitar, girls"
stereotypical sick mentality. this traffic police should be given a befitting
punishment for allowing people to break traffic rules as well as sexual assault
charge. He could have avoid the situation at the first hand. he is the main culprit.
I urge Hindu to have a column by citizen journalists. Our police force is
inefficient lack basic human qualities. If anyone comes across such
atrocities create a news article and defame those those people by having
their pics in the front page itself. Of course, the news have to be
verified
no words for this henious act. what message would the so called "public servant" want to send to the community & to the nation.
I feel really sorry for the lady.
We must also appreciate the courage and composure of that lady who
was able to take clear pictures of the hooligans in such traumatic
situation. Can we hope that the authorities will utilise these
pictures to identify and book the hooligans, which include the police
constable too? The Hindu should take a lead in identifying them and
publicising their names.
"You don't know Kannada" is such a common utterance I have heard from Bangalorians (especially public servants) that I pity the naivety of the
girl to expect anything else.
A similar incident has happened to me and my wife when a group of
hooligan auto drivers surrounded us and passers-by's were actively
discouraged from helping us as we were not "Kannada". All hail the
Indian Diversity. It is as corrupt & hollow as the state itself.
Its a shame, today this happened to woman from North east in Bangalore tomorrow the same can happen to woman from South India in East/West/North East/Nothern part of India. Unless the law is not strong these kind of incidents will keep increasing day by day. In Parliament all junks only vote a bill but they can't recommend the bill to pass and implement in the Law.
The values of democracy seem to be just Hypocrisy in some major cities in India. I wonder where bangalore would get it's revenues from if most non Bangaloreans would leave the city.
U dont speak Kannada,U dont belong here...
U dont speak Marathi,U dont belong here...
U dont speak Hindi,U dont belong here...
U dont speak Punjabi,U dont belong here...
U dont speak Kashmiri,U dont belong here...
U dont speak Gujrati,U dont belong here...
U dont speak this & that, U dont belong here & there...
and all the speakers have all the right to INSULT, MURDER, RAPE, MOLESTATION... WELCOME TO UNBELONGED REPUBLIC OF INDIA !
The constable deserves to be suspended. Banglore is fast losing is
status as a safe city. This matter should be investigated thoroughly.
What a pity! Rather than coming forward to help the woman the crowd sees an opportunity. And the constable is just standing and watching and then justifying and then asking the groper to leave! Shameful. The constable must be suspended but what would it change. This incident reflects the psyche of not just people in police but common men in general. Who see women as objects which is only reinforced by today's Indian media and movies who focus much on glamour. We are turning into a society of perverts. And mere punishment would not do to bring a change to this.
Very shameful event.All culprits including the constable should be punished for this disgraceful act.Severe criminal action must be taken against the constable, who is supposed to be a guardian of public.Let the lady get justice.
Can we expect proper action taken against the police constable who failed in his duties even as a responsible citizen,such that it deters other cops from repeating the same?
This is Part l.Next,she will be called to the police station to be groped again!! "sare jaga se accha.....
“You don’t know Kannada. You don’t belong to this place.”
This is what India is turning out to be. If these people are not
punished appropriately there will never be deterrence. South India was
"Supposed" to be a better place for women in comparison to the North???
What happened to that?
Shameful event, if the police man happened to say "you don't know kannada" then could i ask him whether he knows India, pity regionalism, its not even the matter of regionalism rather this is clear-cut the law and order case, this constable must be punished
it's not about Manipur or North east but India and the mindset. If we
have little shame and respect for women, victim should be given justice
asap.
What are we becoming to ? So much intolerance among the people in India..
We need a strict dictator who can stop unruly behaviour in individuals, corporates and state governments as well.
I think we dont deserve democracy.
I was wondering which faulty research did find Bangalore one of the best
cities to live in. I love the climate of Bangalore and loved the place ,
but with the recent propagation of spirit of hate towards non Kannada
speaking is really bad, is Bangalore imitating Mumbai. the diversity is
just getting lost by some anti socials in civil and uniform.
Can we ever restore the confidence and trust among the people who are
subjected to such crimes. I believe India is for all Indians, North,
South, East, West , Central and North East. Division has never helped
any body, it always hurts and keeps on hurting. "Love one another" , let me quote this apt verse, " If I could speak all the languages of earth
and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal."
Bangalore is becoming dirtier day by day. I have been seeing this
city "deteriorating" day by day for the last 5 years in every sense
be it civilized society or police or traffic etiquette. Moreover I
have been noticing that Police turn a cold face if you are a non-
kannada. Police is the first to treat you as "foreigner".
What a pity !!!
Lady drivers are by and large much more harassed by other road users. They are
constantly taunted and tested. The modern woman may have arrived, most men here
still belong to the stone ages.
The look of the crowd says it all. The complaint of the woman is hundred
percent true. But unfortunately,our courts wont convict anyone as there
will be no witnesses. It only goes to show the kind of respect we as a
society give to women. The constables come from this society and we cant
expect him to behave like god.
This is nothing new, Traffic Cops behave so rudely with commuters, They
easily let of rowdy taxi drivers, auto guys and harass people
specifically people from other states on basis of language. No language
is bigger than a country. All cops and people who think a language is
bigger than service of nation and people should be thrown behind bars,
as it is equivalent to insulting constitution, as our constitution gives
equal right to all languages. Bangalore is becoming worse day by day.
as a bangalorean, can I say how ashamed I am of this behavior of the
constable! with such regionalism taking root in the country, indians
especially north-easterners are probably safer abroad than india. sad!
It is a very shameful event and it shows that Indian society has rotten to the core where it takes to groping and humiliating a woman. Such instances are seen in Delhi, Haryana, Bangalore so often these days. Society has lost its sense of valuing human dignity. The policeman in the case should be taken up strictly and an example should be set by giving him toughest possible punishment.
Is this what the city is turning out to be? Voted as the best city in India to live? huh.
Utterly shocked by this horrific and outrageous incident. Can I proudly say today that "India's unity lies in diversity." Why such meaningless things are being taught in school at all??????????????
It is hard to digest the fact that a single woman molested by a lot of men in the middle of the road.This shows that we have lost our moral and encoragement so we fought with a single lady instead of problem like corruption,poverty etc.we have forgotten that we are first human beings and all have the equal rights to live anywhere.we should think where are we going,a advanced technological world or a 4000 years ago.
And still they say Bangalore is the best place in India to live! So, think about other places.
“You don’t know Kannada. You don’t belong to this place.”
Is that a statement expected from someone who is salaried to protect
the safety of citizens.Where is the issue of language here,human
suffering has got no language.Ideally the constable should be
suspended and sacked from the department,but again you see we are so
habituated to such sheer incivility,that we would accept it as yet
another incident.Empathy is no more a trait seen amongst us,it has
become more of a luxury,that's the irony of life
The situation worsened due to the callous attitude of the crowd and the
most horrifying response from the policemen.Police should protect human
rights and ensure balance since in this case the policeman parted his
ways an inquiry should be made following a suspension.The people
resorted to such measures should be apprehended and imprisoned
immediately else this would reflect very bad on the city's cosmopolitan
image.
We indians are the first to cry about racism when Indians are beaten up in australia and other places. but when if u come to india, its is us Indians who r the biggest racists on the face of the earth. we have a nick name for all the other races.. no wonder we r not liked anywhere else in the world. Indians are hypocrites.. we should learn to be respectful of others..
The reason why this happens is the roadside goons have a problem with a woman - especially one who looks different from them - doing better than them in life. And they go their chance. The constable came from the same demographics.
every locality in bangalore has these goofers/goons. And if a woman tries to protest she will get shouted down. This is a problem that has come up more in the new areas - where the city has encircled teh existing villages.
This is really a matter of great shame for the people of Bangalore and India. The constable and the people involved should not be allowed to get away easily. The media (though at the risk of traumatizing the victim further) should pursue the matter until justice is done. I really feel sorry for the lady who had to put up with so much humiliation.
Until something revolutionary is done to curb this ill practice of treating woman as objects, we will continue projecting India as a sex deprived nation to the world.
Very ashamed!
Look at the rowdies in the picture, behind the constable... not one
decent face to help the woman out. Instead they harassed her further.
Namma Bengaluru, as they say. Growing dirtier by the day.
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