Yesterday was yet another 9/11 through which the world struggled to come to terms with the legacy of the terror attacks on America, 14 years ago. But some of us journalists covering The Advertising Club of Bombay’s Emvie awards in Mumbai had to deal with brutality of an entirely different sort.My feelings at the end of it: shock but more strongly disappointment at an advertising industry and The Advertising Club that could allow such a thing to happen at one of its events and do so little to intervene.Last evening, I arrived with my team to cover the Emvies an award ceremony primarily focused on the media agency part of the business, organised by Mumbai based The Advertising Club (formerly The Advertising Club of Bombay). The event was held at St Regis (earlier Palladium), a 5-star hotel in Lower Parel.I left around 11.30 pm with fellow journalists Shibani Gharat from CNBC and Prasad Sangameshwaran from the Hindu Business Line. We took the Phoenix Mall exit when suddenly Shibani was brutally attacked by a stranger who began to beat her. Her assailant claimed he’d been slapped by Shibani in the first place, a bizarre claim considering she’d spent the evening with us. Recovering from our initial shock, we screamed for help. The Phoenix Mall security came forward, and nabbed the man who appeared to be completely inebriated.I immediately called senior advertising executives, many of whom have management roles at The Advertising Club. But not one of them came forward to assist us. The irony of seeing an industry body liberally award women-themed campaigns like Whisper’s 'Touch The Pickle' and Ariel’s 'Share The Load', and then not so much as lift a finger to help actual women in trouble was not lost on us. Please remember this the next time you see award winning ads on women empowerment and safety. Realise the people who make them find preaching a lot easier than practice and that such ads are best taken with a liberal helping of salt.The action then shifted to the security centre at the mall where, to our horror, we found that the offender, Rambabu Godia, had attended the Emvies and had managed to secure two complimentary passes from Fountainhead, the event management company handling the event. Godia’s connection to the ad industry is surprising, in that there isn’t any: he’s a peon at a garment shop in the Mumbai suburb of Khar! And yet, he and a companion were allowed free access to an event that costs Gold Members of The Advertising Club Rs 1,500 and its silver members Rs 3,000 a head for entry.I called the police control room and cops arrived within minutes. They took us to the NM Joshi Marg police station for registering the case. Through this entire process, we were not assisted by a single person from the ad industry in spite of numerous calls being made. The Advertising Club eventually sent a couple of students who work with them as volunteers to the police station. A colleague contacted the Deputy Commissioner of Police who instructed the local station to slap article 354, a non-bailable section on Godia. Essential considering the fact that both Godia and his companion entirely expected him to be out on bail. More senior officers got involved and finally we filed a FIR at 3 am. Since Prasad and I are the primary witnesses, we will now have to appear in court.We have a few questions to which we’d deeply appreciate answers from The Advertising Club:1. How can The Advertising Club and Fountainhead be so careless as to distribute passes to people with no connection to the business? Even more shocking, when we texted Bipin Pandit, COO, The Advertising Club he assured us passes are “never distributed to random people.” Does this mean The Club or the event agency consider people like Godia a valuable resource of some sort?2. Earlier in the day, Ravi Balakrishnan, Editor, Brand Equity, and I put in a request for the winners of the event because we wanted to cover it for today’s edition of The Economic Times. We gave multiple assurances that the results would not be discussed with any third parties and would not appear anywhere other than the paper the next day and were willing to sign any embargo that the Club chose to put in place.It’s common practice in global advertising events like the Cannes Lions to release the results in advance, acknowledging the needs of the news media business. We were repeatedly refused by the Club, citing fears that there would be leak. If the Club has decided to be such a stickler for rules, may we suggest that a better place to start will be screening the sort of people being allowed entry to an event full of young women and men, eager to celebrate their accomplishments and have a good time?3. We know only too well how active many of the senior advertising folk are on social media given the glee with which they pick apart lapses by the news media and the speed with which they share and chronicle their professional triumphs. As of this time, the only person who has publicly promised an enquiry into and action on this subject is Shashi Sinha, responding in a comment thread to a post by Shibani. Sinha, who is not in the country at the moment, is the past president of The Ad Club. We would like to know why the rest of the leaders in such a voluble industry have opted to stay silent about this.It is going to be a long battle from here on as it is not only about Godia and the case we have registered. I am equally worried for my industry colleagues who attend such events every day. Who will ensure their safety and security? Because all of us know, bad as this was, it could have been far, far worse.Photo credit: Thinkstock