Bengaluru police detained two suspects and five of their alleged accomplices on Wednesday after a video surfaced showing two men on a scooter molesting a woman in Bengaluru’s Kammanahalli area, The Indian Express reported. The incident took place just hours after hundreds of women were sexually assaulted on the city’s streets on New Year’s Eve.
While police are yet to disclose details about the accused, officials said one of the suspects lived in the area where the incident took place, the English daily reported.
The clip shows the men accosting the woman as she walks down an arterial road. In the video, the men are seen passing the woman on a scooter before turning it around and stopping a few feet away from her. The pillion then gets off the vehicle and grabs her while she attempts to wrest herself away from him. After she struggles against both the men, she is thrown to the ground while they ride away.
The CCTV cameras that filmed the assault were installed at a nearby house, whose owners handed over the footage to the media and police officers, NDTV reported. The woman had taken an auto to the area and was walking the final stretch to her house when she was assaulted.
The incident has brought the safety of women in public spaces in Bengaluru under greater scrutiny. On Tuesday, the Bengaluru Police had filed an FIR in connection with the harassment women faced in the city’s MG Road and Brigade Road on New Year’s Eve. Bengaluru Police Commissioner Praveen Sood had said the team investigating the assaults, led by a deputy commissioner of police, had recovered footage from 45 CCTV cameras on MG Road.
“They are cases of molestation clubbed with some attempts to rob. Police teams are investigation the incidents and are confident about arresting the accused,” Sood said, adding that they had referred the case to the City Crime Bureau for quick action.
On December 31, an unruly mob was seen pawing, molesting and passing laws remarks at women in the heart of the Karnataka capital. Eyewitnesses reported that police in both areas were unable to catch the perpetrators and lathi-charged victims in their attempt to bring the crowds under control.
A day after the incident was reported, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara had said that the “western ways” among youngsters was to blame for the harassment. Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi, too, had said that women were molested en masse because of their “short clothes”. The National Commission for Women has issued summons to both politicians for their comments.
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