Woman molested during revelry, says husband

A 23-year-old woman was molested on Brigade Road on New Year's Eve, her husband said.

The couple, married six months ago, live in Indiranagar. It was their first visit to the MG Road area.

"Only eight seconds were left to the new year. The countdown had just begun when we entered Brigade Road. There were many couples behind and around us," he said, describing how the outrage began. "Suddenly a crowd of men fell on the women, groping them.

They were trying to pull down the women's pants. Their hands were all over the women," the 25-year-old husband, a native of Madikeri, said. The husband is a project manager at a branding and interiors firm. He has decided to tell his friends and relatives never to go to MG Road for new year celebrations.

He said there weren't enough women security personnel around. "When we came out of Brigade Road and on to MG Road, the crowd again did the same thing," he rued.

By his reckoning, he was the only one who fought off the crowd. "The police were shoving me away. They had no patience to listen to what I was saying," he said.

The policemen on duty just stood by watching, he claimed.

The woman has not come out of shock, he said.

He is ready to lodge a police complaint, but his parents have advised him against it.

"We are from the middle class and our lives must go on," he said.

Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy rubbished the charge. "No such incidents were reported," he told DH.