Eight held for molestation bid, attacking group accompanying French tourists in UP

Police denied that any of the tourists were attacked by the gang. They were reportedly angry about not being allowed to shoot a selfie with the foreign visitors.

Eight people have been arrested for allegedly attempting to molest a woman and attacking a group accompanying six French tourists to the Lakhania Dari waterfall in Mirzapur, police said on Monday.

While three suspects were arrested on Sunday night, a few hours after the incident, five others were taken into custody the following day. (HT Pic)

While three suspects were arrested on Sunday night, a few hours after the incident, five others were taken into custody the following day.

Denying that any of the French tourists were attacked, police said the suspects had attempted to molest a member of the group accompanying them. Another person was beaten up when he tried defending the woman, who happened to be his niece.

Police identified the French tourists, associated with an international charitable organisation, as Jean Pierre, Bykans Petit Patricia, Venitucci Dominique, Claire Anquetil, Piazza Celia and Marie Bernard.

The six French tourists were visiting Lakhania Dari along with a four-member group when they were allegedly attacked by a gang led by one Vivek Kesari. Police said the tourists returned to their guesthouse in Varanasi’s Shivala area after the incident.

“I spoke to one of the French tourists over the phone. He said a few drops of blood fell on his hand when he tried to help the man attacked by the gang, but they were otherwise fine. None of the tourists were assaulted. They are safe,” Mirzapur superintendent of police Ashish Tiwari told HT.

According to the complaint lodged by the victim, Kesari and his accomplices tried to molest her and beat up her sisters and uncles when they forbade them from taking a selfie with the French tourists.

Tiwari said a case has been registered against the eight suspects under sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 336 (endangering life or personal safety of others), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable with life imprisonment or other imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code.

The other suspects were identified as Imran, Deepak Kumar, Prabhat Gupta, Abhishek Kumar Yadav, Krishna Yadav, Ravi Kumar Bhardwaj and Jaikishan Jaiswal. All of them hail from Varanasi.