India’s Silicon Valley Bengaluru Shamed. Woman Molested On Streets

India’s so called Silicon Valley* is in news again, but for reasons that make us hang our heads in shame. In a horrifying video footage, two men on a scooter are seen blocking a woman’s path on a street in Bengaluru, getting off and then groping her before escaping just hours into the New Year – all while several passers-by are seen stopping, but not coming to the woman’s rescue. The shocking video has emerged amid a nationwide outcry over women allegedly being molested en masse at a public celebration of New Year’s Eve in the IT hub.

The incident is said to have taken place around 2:30 am on Sunday and was recorded by a camera installed at a house off Kammanahalli 5th Main Road in East Bengaluru.

In the video, the woman is seen getting off an auto-rickshaw and walking towards her home apparently just metres away. Lurking in the shadows on a scooter that is kept running, one of two men leaps at her and forces himself on her.

As the woman resists and slaps him, the man drags her towards his partner and pins her down. All this happens while several people passing by the end of the road stop, seemingly to the woman’s cries, but do not come ahead to help her.

It is only as she continues to fight them off that they finally throw her on the road and run off on the two-wheeler.

The incident was brought to the notice of media outlets and reported to police by the residents of the house whose security camera recorded the incident.

On December 31, as midnight approached, several women were groped, harassed and stalked as they tried to escape the street party on and around MG Road in the heart of Bengaluru. Eyewitnesses say the police were either unwilling or unable to help. Photographs show a woman breaking down on the shoulder of a female constable.

*Silicon Valley of India is a nickname of the Indian city of Bangalore. The name signifies Bangalore’s status as a hub for information technology companies in India and is a comparative reference to the original Silicon Valley (San Francisco Bay Area, California), the major hub for IT companies in the United States and across the world.

Inputs from NDTV