DUTY OFFICERS SUSPENDED

Two men on a bike with ‘Police’ written on it molested and assaulted two women in broad daylight in Bandra on Sunday morning. Though one of the accused was caught and handed over to the Khar police, they let him off with just a warning, despite there being several witnesses to the incident.The reason given by the police for not registering an FIR - they merely registered a non-cognisable complaint - was that one of the women, who was wounded in the incident, was not injured seriously enough. The victim’s senior citizen guardian has been running from pillar to post to get an FIR registered.In a similar case that shocked Mumbai in October 2011, two young men, Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandes, were stabbed to death in Andheri (West) after they took on a group of men who were harassing their female friends.According to the police, Sunday’s incident took place about 8 am on the corner of 15th Road in Bandra. Five women were chatting on the street when two men on a motorbike approached them and began passing lewd comments.When the women protested, the duo began harassing them further. At this, one of the women, a 28-year-old, flung her sandal at the accused. Angered, the duo got off their motorbike and began assaulting the women. Three of the women fled in fear, while the other two, including the 28-year-old, began fighting back. The women then tried to run away, but the men chased them on the bike till 16th Road.At this stage, Supratik Sen, CEO of Unilazer Sports, who was passing by on a bicycle, noticed the commotion and tried to intervene. “I approached the women to find out what was happening,” Sen said. “I could see blood oozing out from a cut above one woman’s eye. I was told that she had been assaulted by the men who had come there on a bike with ‘Police’ written on it.“I tried to stop the two men and managed to grab one and push him to the ground, while the second man rushed forward to attack me,” Sen continued. “By then, a crowd began to gather. Fearing he would be caught, one of the men picked up a knife from a nearby fruit stall and began brandishing it at the crowd, yelling at them to back off. He ran some distance, jumped into an autorickshaw, and escaped.”A woman from the crowd, identified as Pooja, called the police helpline. In a while a police vehicle arrived and took custody of the accused.“I learnt that Pooja is a social activist, and we decided to go to the police station and get our statements recorded,” Sen said. “The victim by then had called her guardian, 62-yearold Aspi Frazer. At Khar police station, we narrated the entire incident to the officers who promised to register the case and asked us to leave. They also said we would be called when required.”Once the witnesses left the police station, the police just recorded a non-cognizable complaint and asked the victim and her guardian to go home. The cops then let off the accused after merely warning him, even as Frazer protested vehemently and demanded an FIR be registered. The cops' initial logic was that it was a small scuffle.“I was told that the girl was all right and that her wound was not serious enough for an FIR to be registered,” Frazer said. “I was shocked! Such a grave incident had taken place with my girl, and the cops were simply brushing it aside!”Frazer said they now live in fear.“We are too scared to even step out of our house,” he said. “For the last three days I have been going to the police station, but no one seems to care.”After Mumbai Mirror informed him of the incident, DCP, Zone IX, Vinayak Deshmukh said, “It’s a very unfortunate incident and the FIR should have been filed. We are registering it now.”In a face-saving attempt late on Tuesday night, Mumbai CP Rakesh Maria issued suspension orders against the two duty officers of the Khar Police Station who goofed up the case and registered an NC instead of an FIR.Sub-Inspector Kalpana Suryavanshi and Assistant Inspector Chauhan were suspended immediately after the CP was briefed about the case by his juniors.