Bengaluru Molestation: 'Almost A Stampede' Says Traumatised Witness

Bengaluru: Witnesses have described the horror on Bengaluru's famous MG Road on New Year's Eve, when several women were molested as thousands of revelers poured out on to the street close to midnight. 

A young woman who was present on the boulevard in the heart of the Karnataka capital that night described the situation as "almost a stampede" and said she saw "girls crying and shouting for help." One woman she said fainted, another took off her shoes to fend off attackers. 

Two days later, she is still traumatised by what she saw, the woman said. A friend who was attacked is in shock. "Whenever a woman passed the molesters groped and pawed them, taking advantage of the intense crowd...You can fight back one or two people but how do you fight a crowd," she said, emphasising that men were "intentionally" targeting women. 

It was "mass molestation," she said     
  Another witness said there were not enough police personnel to control the massive crowd. "Everyone was drunk and pushing each other, people behaved indecently. They did not leave a single girl," she said.

She said she saw a woman weeping. "She was bleeding and had scratches. It was very scary," she said, describing how the attackers "grabbed women's hair and pulled at their clothes."

As Bengaluru, which prides itself as a safe city for women, struggles to come to terms with the incident, the state's home minister G Parameshwara has said there are enough policemen and women in the city to ensure safety. 

The incident was first reported by local newspaper Bangalore Mirror, which published photographs of distraught women rushing for help to the hundreds of cops stationed on MG Road. 

Yet no complaint has been registered yet, the city police said today, adding that they were gathering more information. 

The home minister said footage from CCTV cameras installed in the area would be examined by the police.