Kolkata, June 12: In the deserted New Market area, around 11.30pm on Sunday, a young girl ran for her life from a group of molesters, chased by a band of locals who had joined in for fun. Bleeding from deep cuts, breathless and panic-stricken, she saw a bus moving towards Esplanade and made a desperate leap for it. To her horror, the gang stopped the bus, pulled her out and started beating her. No one in the bus raised a finger in protest.
The assault continued until the 21-year-old girl collapsed on the road, wailing and pleading for mercy. She had fought on as long as a lone woman could against a mob. Just when she feared it would get worse, the attackers saw she was bleeding heavily from her injuries, lost their nerve and fled.
When TOI met her on Monday, she had her right hand in a sling. It took 14 stitches to seal her wound. "The horror will haunt me for the rest of my life. But I will fight till the molesters are put behind bars," the gutsy north Kolkata girl said. TOI is withholding her name for security reasons. She is also a key witness in the Park Street rape case, which had shocked the nation and brought home the unpleasant truth that the city may be getting increasingly unsafe for women. It was she who had come forward with information to help police nab the alleged rapists.
Like the earlier incident, the accused in the New Market case are also businessmen. They were remanded in police custody on Monday.
The incident comes barely three days after a homemaker was kidnapped and raped by the driver of a luxury taxi. The 21-year-old said that she and her friends had been to a lounge bar near Lindsay Street only once or twice, and always with male company. "On Sunday, it was just us three girls. When we reached at 11pm, it was very crowded. Even the bar stools were taken so we stood near the bar," she recalled. The three friends were happily chatting, when a man suddenly came and grabbed her from behind, she says.
"My skin crawled. I immediately wrenched myself out of his clasp, and shoved him with my elbows. Then I turned around and pushed him away with both my hands," she said. The man stumbled with the forcefulness of the counterattack and staggered back a few steps.
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