By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Two appalling crimes against women, in sought-after localities of Hyderabad on Friday night, have raised doubts about the safety of women in the city, and called into question whether the Telangana police actually live by their motto - ‘Duty honour and compassion’.

While in Begumpet, a bar dancer was stripped and brutally assaulted by her colleagues on the main road, in Shamshabad, a 25-year-old private-airline employee returning from work was intercepted by three persons who passed lewd comments, made vulgar gestures, and threw alcohol on her.

In the first incident, the police were called by the victim and arrived when she was being assaulted, but allegedly did nothing to rescue her. It happened under the jurisdiction of the Panjagutta police station, which was adjudged as India’s second-best police station last year.

The owner of the bar where the woman worked has close ties to a well-known political leader.

The 25-year-old victim, illegally employed as a dancer at Lisbon Retrobar, was attacked for not performing sexual acts with a customer at the pub.

Four of her women colleagues dragged her out and stripped her on the Begumpet-Somajiguda road, and others joined in and thrashed her.

It was not the police, but inebriated customers of the pub, who came to her rescue, she said.

The police arrived in two vehicles after being called by the victim but did not rescue her.

Their “compassion” was missing even when she approached the police station, wounded and in tattered clothes, she said. “After I approached the Panjagutta police, with help from customers, the cops collected details from me and said they would look into the matter. Minutes later, four persons who assaulted me also came to the station, and the police had friendly discussions with them,” the victim recounted.

“Because I refused the pub management’s directions to entertain customers by performing sexual acts, four women colleagues, also bar dancers, dragged me out and stripped me. Later, the miscreants assaulted me brutally, along with a person named Syed,” she said.

The victim used to work as a junior artist in Tollywood. But due to a lack of opportunities, joined Lisbon Restrobar in January.

The management of the pub brushed aside the incident, saying it happened outside their premises. The staff of the pub allegedly threatened the victim not to lodge a complaint, as the owner is a close friend of a senior political leader.

The police arrested the four women attackers — Ritika, Sweety, Rekha and Vijaya Reddy — and produced them in court. Another accused is absconding.

The police registered cases under Sections 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) read with 34, of the IPC.

West Zone Deputy Commissioner of Police A R Srinivas said he would “inquire into” the woman’s allegations against the cops.

Hiring such dancers is illegal in the State, but every night, officials from the Punjagutta police station visit Lisbon Restobar, and collect bribes from the management, the victim claimed. The police, meanwhile, said they would write to the management of pubs, asking them not to indulge in illegal activities.

Shamshabad incident

In the second incident, the victim was returning home from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport when she was intercepted by three youngsters on a motorcycle.

According to the police, she was attacked in Shamshabad around midnight after she got off a cab, and was walking to her house in RB Nagar. Three persons on a bike approached her, passed lewd comments and made vulgar gestures. They even allegedly splashed alcohol on her. The trio went on a terrorizing spree for a couple of minutes, they said.

Worried, the woman raised an alarm, and the trio fled. She immediately alerted one of her male friends, and with his help, rushed to the RGI Airport police station, where a case under charges of outraging the modesty of a woman was registered.

The police found that CCTV cameras in the vicinity were not functioning due to a power cut.