A minister faced a severe backlash yesterday after he criticised women for dressing “like Westerners” at a New Year’s eve celebration where a mob allegedly carried out a series of sex assaults.
Although police have yet to charge anyone in connection with the violence on Saturday night in Bengaluru local media have carried testimony and photos of victims cowering from their attackers or fleeing for safety.
“I saw groups of boys deliberately falling over girls,” said a witness, who was in the area with his family, as he described the screams and attempts of some women to push men away.
“The image of the city has been tarnished,” said Mathews Philip, an executive director for Human Rights Education and Monitoring.
Every year, hundreds of people flock to pubs and restaurants in Bengaluru’s M G Road and Brigade Road to ring in the New Year, with traffic barred for the celebrations, which turned chaotic this time, witnesses said.
“Many girls were molested, abused or groped,” said Anantha Subramanyam, chief photographer of the Bangalore Mirror, who took photographs that were published in the newspaper.
He took pictures of women fleeing without their shoes, begging for help and weeping, he added.
“There were inhuman acts,” said Sammy, who asked for his surname to be withheld.
“People were acting like they were helping the women, but actually they were molesting them, insulting them, just provoking them.
“Any girl who was passing through those streets was at least being monitored with (the men’s) eyes. That was the minimum,” he said.
“The maximum was that even if she was suffocated and someone was trying to pick her up, there would be lots of people trying to grab her. I couldn’t stand it; I felt helpless.”
Police say they are now trawling through CCTV footage to see if they can identify any of the attackers.
But Karnataka’s Home Minister G Parameshwara said the “unfortunate” attacks were a consequence of women wearing Western clothing.
“A large number of youngsters gathered – youngsters who are almost like Westerners,” Parameshwara said.
“They try to copy Westerners not only in mindset, but even the dressing, so some disturbance, some girls are harassed, these kind of things do happen.”
Parameshwara, who later claimed to have been misquoted, was widely condemned for his televised comments, with the central government’s junior home minister Kiren Rijiju describing them as “irresponsible”.
“We can’t allow the shameful act of #MassMolestation go unpunished,” he said on Twitter, adding that women’s safety is a “must in a civilised society”.
Lalitha Kumaramangalam, who heads India’s National Commission for Women, said Parameshwara should resign over his comments.
“I want to ask this minister: are Indian men so pathetic and weak that when they see a woman in Western clothes on a day of revelry, they get out of control?
“When will the Indian men learn to respect women? The minister should apologise to the women of the country and resign,” Kumaramangalam said.
India has been shamed by shocking levels of sexual assault against women, which came into sharp focus in December 2012 when a student was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi and later died of her injuries, leading to the official cancellation of that year’s New Year celebrations.
Some of the country’s most senior politicians have been accused of casual misogyny, with the leader of one political party widely condemned for brushing off the December 2012 attack by saying “boys will be boys”.
The attacks in Bengaluru have drawn comparison with last year’s mass sexual assaults at New Year’s celebrations in the German city of Cologne, where police were also accused of losing control.
In this photograph taken on January 1, a man is seen helping a woman leave as police try to manage crowds during New Year’s eve celebrations in Bengaluru.
