Student groped in public urges police action against molesters

A biker groped a 23-year-old student from Guwahati on Sunday evening by stopping her in the middle of the road.

The student dropped the luggage she held on both her hands and chased the biker for nearly a kilometre but could not identify him. Two other girls who noticed the incident told her that they had also experienced groping.

The student told DH that she was returning from Pune and got down at the KS Layout bus stop near the Dominos Signal. She was booking an auto to reach her hostel in VV Puram. As she was walking, a scooterist sidled up to her on the pretext of asking directions and groped her.

The shocked girl dropped the bag she held and chased the scooterist but could not catch him. She could only note half of the number plate KA 4011. The student then alerted the police.

The daughter of a policeman, the girl bravely confronted harassments before, but the deliberate and direct sexual attack had shaken her confidence. She is now too scared to get out. The dental student is spending her fourth year in the city. "Noticing that we don’t belong here and look like North Indians, the molesters think we won’t complain to anyone even after such a brazen (molestation) act," she said.

In the past, an auto-rickshaw driver had threatened to rape her and a BMTC conductor touched her inappropriately in the excuse of asking for the ticket. Though she had remonstrated on those occasions, Sunday's incident had prompted her to lodge a complaint with the Kumaraswamy Layout police since she did not want anyone else to suffer at the hands of the molesters. The police have booked unknown people under IPC section 354 A (sexual harassment) and are making efforts to nab the molester.