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‘Patriarchy, not culture’: Rahul Gandhi demands POCSO action over mob harassment in Bihar's Jamui
A video, circulated widely online, showed a boy and a girl being surrounded by a group of men and harassed at an undisclosed location in Jamui.
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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday demanded that the individuals accused of harassing a young boy and a girl in Bihar'a Jamui district be prosecuted under The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO).
A video, circulated widely online, showed both minors being surrounded by a group of people at an undisclosed location in Jamui. Gandhi took to social media platform X, asking “who gave the men the right to behave like this.”
"This is not "culture." It is patriarchy: the belief that any man can police a girl's body, her movement, her choices," the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said while questioning the Bihar government on public safety.
An FIR was registered under POCSO and other relevant sections after the incident came to light. Jamui Police in a statement said a special investigation team (SIT) had been formed, and three accused had been arrested in connection with the matter.
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‘Bihar government must answer…’: What Gandhi said
In his post, Gandhi said the Bihar government “must answer why a girl is not safe on a public road at 7 pm.”
“Every individual in that video must be identified and prosecuted under POCSO, and justice must be swift. And if the incident happened on September 19th, why are the culprits not behind bars yet?” he said.
Terming the video of the incident as “deeply disturbing”, the Congress MP flagged the incident, saying, “Two Class 10 students were stopped on a road. Harassed. Humiliated. Molested. A young girl, hands folded, begged to be let go while goons groped her and dragged her away.”
He further stated that “such attitudes are normalised” when “control is mistaken for culture.”
Video of incident goes viral; police, women's commission respond
In the video, which surfaced online on Monday, a group of people is seen surrounding a boy and a girl. The boy is seen being separated from the girl during the confrontation, following which the latter is confronted by several men. At one point, one of the men, whose face is covered, moves towards the girl and lifts her up and gropes her as she is seen screaming and resisting.
However, the minor boy catches up to them and is seen attempting to intervene in the situation. The two eventually appear to get away from the group. A second video shows both the boy and girl sitting on their two-wheeler, seemingly pleading with the men to let them leave.
After the videos were circulated online, social media users tagged the Bihar Police.
Later on Monday, Jamui SP Dayal said the visuals had reached the cops. “It came to light that the incident took place around 7 pm on September 19. The two friends, a boy and a girl, had gone for coaching and had gone to the area, where the incident occurred, to take photographs,” Dayal stated.
The SP said legal action would be taken, while adding that the victims had not filed a formal complaint on Sunday. “Today, when we approached them, they submitted an application, based on which we registered an FIR,” Dayal said, adding that while no one had been named in the FIR, six to seven people were seen in the video and had been identified during investigation.
Meanwhile, Bihar State Women's Commission president Apsara Mishra said she would write to the SP and seek further information about the incident. “We have also spoken to the Jamui DM, who provided detailed information about the incident,” she added.
