The day after the incident of alleged molestation on the New Year’s Eve in IT city Bengaluru the cops have decided to take suo moto cognisance of the incidents during celebrations at MG Road/Brigade Road. police sources said Ashoka Nagar police are currently examining the CCTV footage. According to police so far no women have complained about the incident but they are working on the footage to take action against the hooligans.
The New Year’s Eve incident shook the otherwise cosmopolitan Bengaluru and the incident has gone viral in the social media which has become a powerful weapon. In fact the ruling congress government has transferred many top police officers the same day in some of them were supposed to lead on the security.
Jyothi A, state president of National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) said Police should book suo moto cases against the perpetrators when they agree that molestation incidents have taken place in the public place.
According to reports on New Years’ Eve, a night of celebration turned into a night of horror for young women in Bengaluru as goons on bikes molested women and also passed lewd comments despite a deployment of around 1,500 policemen in the area.
When asked about the incident, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameswara defended the State police and stated that such incidents “happen” at “such events.”
“Events like New Year’s or events like Christmas day, or many other events similar to that, there are women who are harassed or treated badly. These kinds of things do happen. But we do take proper kind of care. We also take some precautionary measures – in fact police now and then informed that this is an area where we have to be extremely careful,” said the Karnataka Home Minister.
“Unfortunately, what is happening is that on days like New Years, Brigade Road, Commercial Street, or MG road, a large number of youngsters gather. And youngsters were almost like westerners. They tried to copy the westerners, not only in their mindset but even in their dressing. So some disturbance, some girls are harassed, these kind of things do happen,” he added.
“We will see, we will discuss with our senior officers, we will see if there are any alternatives to this kind of events so that women and children are safe,” he said. However after it went viral the police are now looking at footage to book the hooligans. The new police commissioner of Bengaluru Praveen Sood who took charge on the first day of the year said his priority would be safety of the women and children.