Kolkata: Middle aged man molests woman after asking her not to smoke

After allegedly beating up a couple in a Kolkata Metro compartment for hugging, another instance of moral policing going rogue have surfaced on Thursday evening.

A woman post-graduate student from the Jadavpur University in south Kolkata was allegedly pestered and then molested by a middle-aged person because she was smoking with her friends in the 'open'. According to the complaint filed by the victim at the Netaji Nagar Police Station, she along with her friend was smoking and waiting for an auto rickshaw at 10 pm on Thursday. "The man came over to us and said we should be ashamed of ourselves for being girls and smoking in a public place. We didn’t pay attention to him and boarded the auto. He also boarded the auto and started hurling filthy abusive words at us and at the same time started touching my private parts. After the auto reached near the police station, he even slapped me and tried to escape but I caught hold of him and handed him over to the cops," the complaint read.

She later expressed her relief saying that the police quickly swung into action and arrested the accused, Raju Saha. Speaking to some media organisations, the lady also said that the middle aged man asked for a drag of her cigarrete which she had refused. However this point was not mentioned in the police complaint. 

On May 30, a couple was beaten up by a crowd comprising elderly people at the Dum Dum Metro Rail station for allegedly hugging inside the train compartment. The incident raised a storm on social media with youths gathering at the Metro Rail and hugging in protest of the moral policing.