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.
