The accused was masturbating on the escalator (in circle)

GURUGRAM: It’s Friday night. A young woman arrives at Huda City Centre metro station in a Yellow Line train from Delhi and begins walking down, towards the exit. She reaches the escalator that takes people to the station compound. A secure place, seemingly, with CCTV surveillance, and enough people around to make anyone feel safe. But while she is on the escalator, she gets the feeling of being followed. Then she feels a presence just behind her. It gives her the creeps.

On Monday afternoon, after a weekend spent poring through CCTV footage, seething at the police’s lack of initiative, and grappling with the question whether to continue staying on in Gurugram or not, the 29-year-old woman decided she would let the world know what had happened at the metro station.

On the escalator on Friday night, she had instinctively turned around. It was around 9.25pm.

There were others too, but right in front of her, stood a man, a stranger. He was masturbating . And he was looking at her.“I confronted him and slapped him,” she told TOI on Monday, adding the man, who seemed to be in his mid-20s, responded with a volley of abuses. She said she also screamed to draw fellow commuters’ attention but no one reacted.

“No one came forward, not even the women standing near me,” she said, emphasising the need for discussions and measures to increase safety in public spaces, particularly for women.

“We do not need free rides. We need safety. We want safety, which every government has failed to provide despite multiple promises,” she wrote in her tweet.

“I sent the same message to DMRC and I immediately got a call from them, following which I was asked to identify the man on CCTV footage (which she did). “Gurugram police got in touch with me only after my tweets,” she said.

“I want to file a complaint and pursue this case because it is time we start speaking about the need for safe spaces for women,” she added. “But at the same time, I am scared about my own safety.” Police’s delayed response has only made those apprehensions worse.

A Gurugram police spokesperson said they would start an investigation. “We received a complaint through Twitter. We have asked her to submit a written application and record her statement on Monday, following which we will start the investigation,” said police spokesperson Subhash Boken.

This is the second episode of perverted behaviour to be reported in the last 10 days from a metro train or station compound. Last week, an auto driver was arrested for flashing a woman inside a train between Sikanderpur and MG Road metro stations. When the woman raised an alarm, commuters nabbed him and handed him over to the police.

