Beasts unleashed!
Bengaluru, which is known as an oasis of tranquillity and law abiding city, is now in news for the wrong reasons especially on occasions like New Year and Christmas. In past too, women were molested by bad element in and around pubs, restaurants and clubs, harassing them unabashedly. The incident on New Year evening this time in the heart of Bengaluru was no different and was most unfortunate.
While 1,500 police personnel were deployed in sensitive areas where incidents often happens, the lumpen elements, mingling with the mobs of revellers, resorted to molestation, groping and other despicable behaviour leaving the hapless women running for their lives.
Strangely, the State's Home Minister, G Parameshwara, reacted to the outrage in a manner that was downright preposterous. His response to a TV channel that on New Year's Eve a large number of youngsters gather… they try to copy the West in their mindset and also in dressing, so some girls are harassed and that these things happen, is as insensitive a statement as can be. Maharashtra Samajwadi Party legislator Abu Azmi added fuel to the fire by blaming women for being ill-clad and for going out unescorted on such a day, inviting trouble. That the sensation-obsessed media has lapped it up is typical of these times.
The police commissioner, Praveen Sood, says that the police had not received a single complaint from a molested woman and that they are left to go only by the footage of the CCTV cameras, which is often unclear and hazy. But the moot point is why do women fight shy of reporting incidents to the police? Evidently, the goons are not the only ones they fear — the cops too invoke fear. Some of the hoodlums are spoilt brats from influential families who manage to pull strings to keep out of trouble and there is no knowing that they would then not harass the girls who complain against them. Nevertheless, some of the harassed girls must come forward and the police must undertake to maintain confidentiality.
All said and done, the State administration and the police have to find ways to ensure that women are not molested or harassed on such occasions. If the police was really serious it should have made some preventive arrests of goonda elements before New Year's Eve. Deterrent punishment has to be meted out to those who are caught by the police. It is, indeed, strange that no arrests have been made. Clearly, the State government and the police need to answer some tough questions. Also, men must realise that women out to have ‘fun' in whichever way they deem fit are not ‘properties to take over' (cringe). Consent is the only — only — way with women. Is that something hard to understand?
