Karnataka Home minister for stringent action against girl’s assailants

The gory Sunday evening incident involving a gang of nine ‘assaulting’ and ‘abusing’ a BCom student and her male friend on Berlie Street Cross Road adjacent to the Christian Cemetery off Hosur Road, has led to Home Minister R Ashoka saying that if she was indeed sexually assaulted, stringent action would be taken against the accused.

Ashoka, while explaining the incident, said the victims were confronted by the gang of nine, who started teasing them.

Heated arguments ensued between the boy and the gang members, followed by a scuffle when the boy tried to object. The gang then allegedly overpowered the boy and the girl, whose names have been withheld to protect their identities, and beat them up after dragging them into the cemetery. He said the assailants tied up the 22-year-old boy to a tree before “misbehaving” with the girl.

A police source, however, confirmed to DNA that the girl was sexually assaulted by some of the gang members after her friend was tied up to the tree inside the cemetery premises. The police, including senior police officials, however, maintained that it was only a case of dacoity as the gangsters fled with the duo’s mobile phones, the boy’s bike and his guitar after the ordeal that the two had to endure.

But neither the girl nor her family has filed a complaint of sexual assault.

“We are ready to take stringent action against the accused, but the parents of the victim are not ready to file any complaint in this regard. We are ready to extend all  possible help to the victims,” the minister said.

The important point that the victims’ families need to make note of is this: if indeed the girl was subject to such a heinous crime, and if a complaint to that effect is still not filed, then assailants like these would go scot-free to continue heaping their lustful and gross acts on other innocent women in future.