Open Street Festival: Women allege sexual abuse

The Dasara Open Street Festival, held on Krishnaraja Boulevard on Saturday, is in the news for all the wrong reasons. A few women and college students have complained of sexual abuse during the event.

The victims have taken to the social media, to air their grievances and to share about the harrowing experience. But, no one has come forward to file a complaint officially with the authorities concerned. A victim has uploaded a copy of a message (screen shot) to the official Twitter accounts of Prime Minister, Karnataka Chief Minister, Home Minister and Mysuru Deputy Commissioner.

A majority of the participants in the festival were college boys and girls. Several tourists were also part of the event.

The victims allege that the event was not organised in a proper manner and it was a ‘black mark’ for Dasara festival. “Either the authorities must organise the event in a planned way or it should be banned,” they said. The victims also alleged that the delay in switching on the streetlights too resulted in the abuse.

It may be mentioned that the City Police had deputed adequate Police personnel to monitor the crowd. In addition, the Mobile Commando vehicle was stationed on the street to monitor the crowd and to tackle untoward incidents. The vehicle functions similar to a police control room and the cameras are capable of capturing videos and images from a distance of 1 km.