Indiranagar

Jeevan Bima Nagar

Shivalinga

Sridhar

Seemanth Kumar Singh

Cops refuse to file complaint of back-to-back incidents insaying they are busy with poll dutySheer negligence on part of the(JB Nagar) police in registering the complaint of a 23-year-old techie after she was groped by a gang of unidentified men, exposed the woman to a more serious ordeal by another group of miscreants, who almost raped her when she was returning from the police station along with her colleague.The victim and her colleague were in Indiranagar and were returning home after dinner at 2 am on May 9, when the gang intercepted them and misbehaved with her. The duo went to the JB Nagar police station, where she was sent away as police claimed to be too busy with election duty to file her complaint. When she insisted, the policeman in the station told them to come the next morning and file a complaint.When the both were returning, another gang intercepted them and took her away to a playground and almost raped her. Hearing her screams, a few passersby came to her rescue. After the second incident, when she approached the police again, they again turned her away saying all the men in the station were busy with election.She refused to give up and reached the office of the police commissioner over phone, finally managing to get their complaint registered, that too seven days after the incident.Sunil Hosamani, 24, who was with his female colleague that night, recalled the horrific turn of events. He said he was riding a bike to drop his colleague home after dinner.They had reached the 80 ft Road in Indiranagar, when a group of six-seven young men intercepted him and showed some ID card claiming to be policemen. Sunil told BM, “They asked us where we were going at this hour. I understood they were not police, so I spoke to them in a high tone and asked them to make way. One of them punched me on my face, while two others held me and the rest pulled my colleague by her hair, touching her inappropriately and pushed her on to the road. When we screamed for help, a few commuters on the road started heading towards us, so the gang escaped. I noted down the registration number of their scooter.”He called the police control room and a Hoysala came to the spot. “Though the policemen suggested we go to JB Nagar police and file a complaint, when we did so, the head constablerefused to take our complaint,” he added.The duo decided to return. “We were close to the Government School on JB Nagar Cross Road, when an around eight-nine-member gang stopped our bike. A few threatened me at knife point to part with my valuables, while the others molested my friend. They hit me with a stone and dragged my colleague to a playground around 150 mt away. They attempted to rape my colleague but two bikers passing by came to our rescue. The men hit my friend with asbestos lying on the ground before escaping,” he said. He said he can’t be sure that both the gangs were the same. “The first gang spoke Tamil and Hindi while the second in Kannada and Tamil. The second gang did not have scooters or bikes,” Sunil said.Their ordeal didn’t end here as the police refused to file a complaint the next morning too. “But, we gave a written complaint to, a head constable and left the station as he did not give us FIR. I went to the police station four times in three days and still they did not register the case. The FIR was registered only on May 16 after I called the police commissioner’s office repeatedly,” he added. The case is watered down too.Both Sunil and his colleague, who are software engineers and run their own company, are yet to recover from the trauma of the incident. When BM called JB Nagar police station, the head police inspector said he was not aware of such a case being registered. “My staff had not brought this case to my notice. I will immediately check what went wrong,” he said. Additional commissioner of police (East)said, as this is a serious issue, station staff shouldn’t have sent them back making election as an excuse. “Election doesn’t mean we should not do basic policing. I will look into the case and necessary action will be initiated,” he said.