A 26-year-old woman from Manipur was allegedly kicked, punched and dragged by the hair in Mumbai’s busy Santacruz area but police refused to file an FIR for days, triggering media outrage.
The woman was accosted by a man unknown to her around 6.30 pm on Saturday, who allegedly spat at her and started beating her up when she objected, Mid Day reported.
“He hit me, then kicked me in the abdomen. When I tried to resist, he molested me and tore my clothes. He began to hit me again, and I fell down. Then he grabbed my hair and dragged me by it on the street for a few metres,” the woman told Mid Day.
Her friends reportedly tried to help her but the assailant pushed them aside. None of the onlookers allegedly intervened or responded to her cries for help.
The woman’s sister said they often faced a lack of compassion and discrimination for their features.
“Because of our Northeast facial features, people believe that we are from China or Nepal. Because of this discrimination, no one came to my sister’s rescue,” she told Mid Day.
{{/usCountry}}“Because of our Northeast facial features, people believe that we are from China or Nepal. Because of this discrimination, no one came to my sister’s rescue,” she told Mid Day.
{{/usCountry}}“My sister is in trauma right now. Culprits should be punished,” she told news agency ANI.
After the incident, the woman went to the police station to file a complaint but was allegedly snubbed with the officer-in-charge refusing to file an FIR. The woman told Mid Day that the complaint filed made no mention of molestation, or her torn clothes.
“I don’t understand Marathi, so I did not know what was written in the complaint copy, but assumed he had filed an FIR. I was shocked when my sister’s friend told me it was only an NC. Later, I figured out that he hadn’t even mentioned the entire crime in detail in the complaint,” she told Mid Day.
The police recorded her statement and registered an FIR in the case on Wednesday, the newspaper reported.