“I withdraw the complaint today, then tomorrow it is going to be somebody else (who is victimised),” says Mira (name changed), a Congolese national who was allegedly molested by a salesman in a shop in Bengaluru on Monday.

Mira (24), a final year BBM student, has lodged a complaint with the Madiwala police alleging that a shopkeeper in the Tavarekere area molested her.

Mira said she went to the Podolite shop at around 1 pm on Monday. Once she bought a bag, she decided to buy a pair of slippers. After she had paid, the man handed over the package.

“I took it and as I was leaving, he groped me. It did not feel like a unintentional touch. He put his palm on my crotch and felt it,” Mira said.

“When I confronted him, he smiled sheepishly and kept giggling. I called a man standing outside the shop to help me, but he refused,” Mira said.

While she called her friend and her brother, the man tried to slip away. “But I caught up with him and said he could not leave.”

After her brother arrived, they took him to MICO Layout police station. But officials said they had to go to the Madiwala police station and took them there along with the accused.

“While writing the complaint a police constable said ‘Write that he touched on the waist and not vagina because it is problematic.’ But we insisted we will write private part, mentioning vagina in brackets,” Mira said.

She said that two people who called themselves shop owners offered them compensation to withdraw the complaint. 

Madiwala police have not yet registered an FIR, but say that they will do so after they carry out the mahajar (spot inspection).