Woman's clothes allegedly torn by bouncers at Delhi bar over entry tiff

A recent mishap in Delhi has brought the popular Delhi bar ‘Code’ under scrutiny after as an FIR was filed by a woman accusing bouncers of a popular nightclub in the capital of tearing off her clothes and beating her up.

According to reports, a group of bouncers allegedly misbehaved with a woman and her friends and thrashed them after they got into an argument over club entry.

The police have filed an FIR against the bouncers accused of assaulting the woman. The victim is currently undergoing treatment at AIIMS.

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The police are checking the CCTV footage to get specificities of the incident. The bouncers accused of the aggression are on a run.

Club owners, however, denied the charges, accusing Delhi Police personnel of mental and physical harassment apart from being falsely implicated in the case for not paying 'extortion' money.

In a letter to the Special Commissioner of Police (Law and order), he accused the local police personnel of demanding Rs 5 lakh extortion money every month and when he refused to pay that, he was subsequently threatened by them. On the September 18 incident, the club owner said that around 1 a.m. in the night, four boys and three girls, who were all drunk, misbehaved with the club's staff and when they were told to behave, the girls threatened to implicate us on false charges.

"We kept requesting the police personnel to investigate with the help of CCTV cameras as our club is completely covered with it and the whole incident has been recorded on it," the club owner said. He said that the police kept his staff members in custody for over 22 hours and thrashed them with belts, sticks and shoes at regular intervals.

"They forcibly took Rs 1.5 lakh from the podium and then made a call to the police. When the police came, it was the same cop who had been threatening us with extortion and then he yet again threatened us of severe consequences," the club owner wrote in his letter to the Special CP. The owner claimed that the police personnel came the next day on September 18 as well and detained two of their staff members who were explaining to them the previous night's incident.

According to the police, the incident took place on the intervening night of September 17-18. "A PCR call was received at KM Pur police station regarding an incident of misbehaviour and tearing off the clothes of a woman at 'Da Code' club in South Extension after which the police reached the spot and met the caller," Deputy Commissioner of Police Chandan Chowdhary said.

According to the DCP, when the police reached the spot, they found that the woman caller's clothes were messed up and disordered, and on inquiry, she told that her clothes were torn by two bouncers and their manager of the club. "She further informed that they misbehaved and hit them, and that they had touched her inappropriately," the DCP said.

After taking the victim woman to AIIMS Trauma Centre, the police, accordingly, registered an FIR under sections 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 354 A (Sexual harassment and punishment for sexual harassment), 354 B (Assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and began probing the incident.

The senior official said the complainant was examined in the case, who had informed that she had come to the club along with her friends to party, but they had an argument over entry into the club and were subsequently thrashed by the bouncers.

(with IANS inputs)