Daijiworld Media Network - Mysuru (SP)
Mysuru, Oct 17: The populace of the city which is known as the cultural capital of Karnataka has fairly good reputation of being well-behaved. However, on the occasion of 'Open Street Festival' held at Krishnaraja Boulevard here as part of the ongoing Navaratri festival, a large number of women were either stalked, groped, inappropriately touched, faced lewd comments or sexually harassed, going by the way they took to social websites to air their grievances.
Many women took to social websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to pour out a feeling of frustration and anger they went through at the crowd's behaviour during the festival. Some of the complainants chose to remain anonymous. However, if the city police commissioner, A Subrahmanyeshwar Rao, is to be believed, the police have not received any official complaint from the harassed women. He however said that the police, on the basis of four posts on social media, Twitter, which they have come across, is investigating them.
On Monday, a large crowd of both locals and tourists had got together to witness the Open Street Festival where cultural richness of the state were on display. One of the tweets said that the behaviour of boys who came drunk was disgusting and irritating. "Boys were falling on women. Even after some women mustered the courage to raise their voices, local boys did not come forward to their defence," she said, adding that it was shameful for Mysuru. Another said that it was common for men present at the festival to inappropriately touch the women and then say sorry, knowing fully well that they can take shelter under the guise of crowd pressure.
Another poured out her anger at the fact that a few men were passing very obscene comments at the foreign tourists accompanying her. She said that the men perhaps did not know she understands Kannada, and she felt thankful that the tourists did not know Kannada.
The police commissioner said the police would be examining the CCTV footage which they have put together. He said that during the scrutiny, the police so far have not come across any unusual incident of indecent behaviour.