NEW DELHI — News of a “mass molestation” surfaced swiftly in the Indian news media: Numerous women being groped, harassed and chased on the streets of Bangalore by an unruly crowd on New Year’s Eve.

And almost as swiftly, the government official who is ultimately responsible for keeping order on those streets, the home minister of Karnataka State, said the women were to blame because of the way they looked and acted.

“Youngsters were almost like Westerners,” said the official, G. Parameshwara, in a televised interview on Monday. “They tried to copy the Westerner, not only in their mind-set but even in their dressing. So some disturbance, some girls are harassed, these kind of things do happen.”

Public outcry over sexual assault and street safety in India has grown in recent years as such cases have come to light, including the 2012 rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi who later died of her injuries. Though the government has since imposed harsher punishment for sexual assault, politicians and the police have been criticized as failing to take the issue seriously and blaming the victims for the violence committed against them.