A woman can be seen weeping in a moving car. While one man holds her neck, another man ties a mangalsutra forcefully around her neck. A song from a Kannada movie can be heard blaring loudly from the car’s speaker and yet the woman’s cries are louder. The video of the incident went viral on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, Hassan district police in Karnataka have arrested three men for abducting the 23-year-old woman and forcefully tying the mangalsutra around her neck.
Police say that the man forcefully who tied the mangalsutra is her relative.
The 23-year-old woman, a resident in Hassan district’s Arsikere taluk, works as a tailor in Hassan city. On February 3, she took the bus from her village to town for work. However, she did not return home that night and her parents began worrying. Dudda Police, who probed the case, said that the woman’s parents filed a missing persons complaint only on Tuesday night.
“Her parents thought she had eloped and hence had not approached the police initially. Later, when they were unable to contact her, they approached us,” the Dudda Police said.
Police say that the prime accused Manu (30) had been pestering the woman to get married to him for over a year now. “She had turned down his proposal many times. When she was waiting for the bus at the Hassan Dairy Circle, Manu and three of his friends Vinay and Praveen and another man, who were in a car approached her,” Hassan SP Ram Nivas Sepat said.
Manu allegedly offered to drop her home and convinced her to get into the car. “When she refused, they forced her into the car and began driving around the area. They left Hassan and it was during the journey to Ramanagar that the video was recorded when he forcefully tied the mangalsutra,” SP Sepat said. Later, they also took her to a temple in Ramanagara, where the prime accused Manu exchanged garlands with the woman.
On the night of February 3, Manu, Vinay and Praveen allegedly took the woman to one of their relatives’ house in Ramanagara and forced her to stay there.
“We have rescued the woman and arrested the three men. One more accused is absconding,” SP Sepat added. Upset after the video went viral, police said that the woman's father attempted to end his life by consuming poison. He is currently undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Hassan.
The trio have been booked under section 361 (kidnapping), 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman), 350 (use of criminal force), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.