Monday, January 26, 2009

India: moral vigilantes attack women

In an incident of moral policing in Karnataka, a group of men in Mangalore attacked a group of women in a pub on Saturday afternoon.The attack was carried out by members of the Sri Ram Sena, who said they had received complaints from the public about the presence of young women. The five or six women in the pub were chased out and hit by the self-appointed moral police....

"About 15 to 20 activists, reportedly belonging to Sri Ram Sena [Hindu nationalist group], barged into the pub late last night and assaulted boys and girls dancing there," said Inspector General of Police (Western Range) A M Prasad. Even the girls were not spared by the agitated activists who chased and thrashed the victims when they tried to flee from the pub on the busy Balmatta Road in the heart of the city, eyewitnesses claimed...

Prasad said the attackers accused the pub owner of allowing the boys and girls to dance and act in an "obscene manner"... "Those people (attackers) simply came in and started beating the girls. It was a bad scene. Our waiters tried to stop them but they did not listen and kept assaulting the girls," pub owner A Krishna said.

(source: NDTV, 25 January 2009)

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