Shriya Patil Shinde, a photojournalist working in Mumbai
For 14 years, Shriya Patil Shinde has been shooting Mumbai. As a photographer with an English business magazine, she has gone to the deepest recesses of the city, often at its darkest hours.
Last week's gang-rape of a 22-year-old photojournalist taking pictures of a deserted mill has stunned the country - Mumbai has often been considered among the country's safest cities for working women.
Shriya says she has learnt repeatedly that it is not a safe assumption. She is shaken by the grizzly details of the gang-rape. But eight years ago, when she was 24, Shriya was shooting a rail roko or demonstration on the train tracks at Dombivili in eastern Mumbai, when the assignment turned into her personal hell.
"Suddenly someone pulled my clothes and all of a sudden a mob charged, turned towards me. There were people pulling my hand, snatching my camera. I can imagine what that lady photojournalist must have gone through," she said.
"There was only one policeman who came forward to help me out. But poor thing, he got beaten up very badly and was bleeding," she recalled.
The attack last week has her family worried.
"I have always thought of my subject, never thought that I need to bother about my safety. Till date, I have done night assignments. But now there is a fear factor. I am scared, my family is scared for my safety."
She says she won't refuse risky assignments or stop after-sunset shoots. "I have to get that pepper spray," she says, and adds that she will be more vigilant than ever before.