Kim Hjelmgaard

USA TODAY

A large number of women may have been groped during New Year's Eve celebrations in Bangalore, India, in a mass molestation that if confirmed would recall similar assaults a year ago in Germany.

Reports of the incident Saturday night emerged this week after a newspaper in Bangalore published images of women crying and seeking the protection of male friends, relatives and police amid thousands of revelers in the center of the city known for its high-tech industry.

Some of the pictures show woman weeping as they run toward police using batons to keep unruly crowds at bay. "Some random guy tried to grope me while I was returning home from work," Chaitali Wasnick, a photographer, wrote on Facebook.

The Bangalore Mirror, the newspaper that published the images, reported that despite the photographic evidence and eye-witness accounts, police have not registered any complaints from women about molestation or harassment.

While the politician responsible for the region vowed Tuesday to make sure no "shameful acts" went unpunished, he also appeared to blame women and young people for copying "westerners, not only in their mindset but even in their dressing. So some disturbance. Some girls are harassed, these kind of things do happen," Karnataka Home Minister G Parameswara said.

A year ago in Cologne, Germany, 513 sexual assault complaints were filed, with witnesses describing assailants as "dark-skinned" foreigners who raped, groped and robbed women in the main train station in the early hours of New Year's Day.

The mass sex attacks shocked Germany, which has admitted nearly a million asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa. There have been just a handful of convictions. This year, German police screened hundreds of mostly North African men at Cologne's main train station to prevent a repeat of the attacks.

Ninety-two people were temporarily detained on Saturday in Cologne, although the police operation drew criticism because authorities were accused of racial profiling.

A tweet sent by Cologne police saying that hundreds of "Nafris" — an abbreviation for North Africans — had been screened was condemned by Simone Peter, the leader of the Green Party and Germany's interior minister said the term was not in official usage and poorly chosen.

Sexual violence against women in India has led to a wave of national protests. In 2012, the case of a young woman who was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi made international headlines. The woman later died from her injuries.

Germany detains North African men to avoid repeat of New Year's sexual assaults