Two instances of crime against women were reported from Hyderabad in a span of few hours in one night. In one instance, a woman employee of a pub was stripped and brutally assaulted by her colleagues. In another incident, an Indigo woman employee was harassed by three unidentified men on a motorcycle.
Case 1: Allegedly stripped and assaulted
A woman employee at a restobar in Begumpet, Telangana, told the police that the bar manager asked her to offer sexual favours to customers. Her refusal was responded to with violence by four of her female colleagues. All four women have been arrested. The incident took place on Friday night.
While the four women reportedly stripped and dragged the survivor, a few others joined in the assault. The customers at the bar managed to intervene and put an end to the assault. The victim managed to reach the Panjagutta police station with the help of a few customers.
"After I reached the station, the cops collected details from me and said they would look into the matter. Minutes later, the four people who assaulted me also came to the station, and the police had a friendly chat with them," the woman told The New Indian Express.
The police have registered cases under sections 354 (Assualt or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509, (Punishment for criminal intimidation), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) read with 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
The woman had joined work at the bar in January after a stint as a junior artiste in Tollywood. The bar management has refused to take responsibility for the assault citing it happened outside their premises, reported TNIE. The survivor has accused the police of going soft on the management due to the political connections of the bar owner.
Case 2: Stalked and teased
The Indigo airlines employee was stalked by three unknown persons on a bike at Shamshabad Town in Hyderabad as she was returning from her work on Friday night. The police are, however, unable to trace the accused as none of the CCTV cameras in the locality was operational at the time of the incident due to power cut.
As the 25-year-old airline employee was returning home around 11:30 pm, she boarded a cab from Rajiv Gandi Internation Airport (RGIA) and got down a few metres away from her home.
That was when three youth on a bike started following the woman. They teased her and passed lewd comments but ran away when the survivor raised alarm calling for help. A few media outlets had reported that the assailants threw liquor at the woman, however, according to a report by the Times of India, the police have denied those reports.
Soon after the three accused fled the scene, the survivor reached out to a friend, and later, the same night, approached the RGIA police station to file a complaint.
However, the police have so far been unable to trace the three men as there was a power outage at the time when the alleged crime took place. Thus, none of the CCTV cameras could capture the images of the accused. The police have registered a case of stalking and are on the lookout for the accused who are still at large.
In 2017, when an Indigo woman staff was allegedly harassed by two drunk men at the RGIA, she had taken them to the police outpost and made them touch her feet to apologise. The video of the harassers apologising to the woman had gone viral on social media back then. The police had only booked the duo for creating nuisance as the woman did not register a complaint.