Woman beats up harasser in market

NEW DELHI : The video of a young woman beating a man, who had allegedly harassed her at a market in central Delhi, and dragging him to the police station has gone viral on social media.

The 21-year-old college student said that on February 25, when she had gone to Ghaffar market in Karol Bagh with a friend, two men harassed her by passing obscene comments. She alleged that the two men followed her across the market. Police have arrested the accused, Manish Kumar and Abhishek, and registered an FIR against them.

This is the second incident of a college student alleging harassment in a public place. On February 7, a Delhi University student alleged that a middle-aged man masturbated in front of her in a moving bus. Police are yet to identify the man whose photograph taken by the woman has been pasted across all police stations in the city.

In the latest case, the video shows the 21-year-old woman dragging the man by his collar. “There were three men in a rickshaw. Two of them were constantly passing lewd comments and making obscene gestures. The third man did not do anything. Initially, we tried to avoid them but they kept stalking us. Two of them even followed us around while passing such vulgar comments,” she said.

The woman said that when she confronted them, they abused her after which she caught one of them by the scruff of his neck and thrashed him.

The man is seen begging for forgiveness in the video.

“Passersby helped me in nabbing the man. I had called up the police control room but before the cops reaching the spot, a traffic official spotted me on the road and offered help.

The traffic policeman caught hold of the man and with the help of a passerby, took us to the police station,” she said.

The woman’s complaint was recorded at Karol Bagh police station. In order to trap Abhishek, police made Manish call him and tell him that the woman had withdrawn her complaint and was ready for a compromise. As soon Abhishek reached the police station, he was also arrested.

“I want to thank the police and locals for helping me nab the two men. This is not the first time that I have been harassed on the road but I decided to hit back this time because despite being ignored, they persisted and followed me,” she said.

DCP (central) MS Randhawa confirmed that the two men have been arrested. Police said the two men are residents of Charkhi Dadri in Haryana, around 100 kilometres from Delhi. The duo told police they were college students and had come to Karol Bagh to get their laptop fixed.