Image Credit: Facebook

Woman harasses girls for wearing 'short dresses'

Asks a group of men to rape them

The girls record a video as they as for an apology

The video went viral and has received over a million views

Dubai: A video of a woman in India who verbally attacked a group of girls for wearing ‘short dresses’ at a shopping centre went viral online.

Now, the woman who has been identified as Soma Chakrabarty has apologised for her actions. She extended her apology through her Facebook profile and Instagram account which she has currently made private.

She allegedly harassed the girls by asking a group of men to rape the girls at a restaurant because she did not approve of their clothing.

The incident occurred in Gurugram, in the state of Haryana.

Soon after, the girls confronted the woman at a store nearby, while recording the interaction. They demanded an apology and threatened to make the woman “go viral online” if she doesn’t.

Upon being followed, the woman asked the store staff to call the police on the girls.

After a while of talking, another woman joined in and supported the girls. She demanded the middle-aged woman to apologise to the youngsters and said that it was their “right to wear whatever they wanted”.

However, the woman did not apologise and dared the girls to post the video online. Towards the end of the clip she requested the parents of the girls to “control” them.

Shivani Gupta, one of the girls who was harassed, uploaded the video on her Facebook page with a caption explaining the incident.

In her post, Gupta wrote: “This middle aged woman you’ll see in the video addressed seven men at the restaurant to rape us because she felt we deserved it for wearing short clothes and bashing her unsolicited opinion.”

“Our instinct was turn away from the drama but supported by our colleagues, we took her on at a shopping centre, nearby. We gave her the chance to apologise, to no avail, of course. Nothing moved the needle for her, not even another woman who learned the story on the spot and implored the ghastly woman to apologise,” she added.

The clip that was posted on April 30 has received over a million views so far. The woman has received strong backlash for her comments towards the girls.

“Disgusting is the word for people with this mentality. Well done girls who recorded this video and viral it on social media, because this kind of women deserve a lesson,” wrote Twitter user @sanyaarora209.

Whereas tweep @Andieeeeee3 shared a clip from the video and posted: “Such a shame. Here we are asking for death penalty for rapists in India and on the other hand we have women saying women should be raped because of the length of a girl's skirt. An elderly woman who is also a mother, women like her raise men to be rapists…”

Facebook users shared similar sentiments. User Aman Singh commented on Gupta’s video and wrote: “Appalled beyond belief. The even more abhorrent part is how these people are so very inherent to our society and in prospective ways they could disturb, deplore and rot the same both transitively and intransitively. Absolutely shameful and kudos to the girls for assassinating this brazenly audacious individual publicly.”

Hypocritical?

The woman has deleted her social media accounts after the incident, according to Indian news channel, Times Now's website. However, Gupta got a hold of images of the woman sporting a dress that reaches above her knees and posted them on her Instagram account.