BANGALORE: An Indian minister faced a severe backlash on Wednesday after he criticised women for dressing \u201clike westerners\u201d at a New Year\u2019s eve celebration where a mob allegedly carried out a series of sex assaults.
\nAlthough police have yet to charge anyone in connection with the violence on Saturday night in Bangalore, local media have carried testimony and photos of victims cowering from their attackers or fleeing for safety.
\nPolice say they are now trawling through CCTV footage to see if they can identify any of the attackers.
\nBut a minister with responsibility for policing in the southern state of Karnataka, whose largest city is Bangalore, said the \u201cunfortunate\u201d attacks were a consequence of women wearing western clothing. \u201cA large number of youngsters gathered \u2014 youngsters who are almost like westerners,\u201d Karnataka\u2019s Home Minister G Parameshwara told The Times Now television network, speaking in English. \u201cThey try to copy westerners not only in mindset, but even the dressing, so some disturbance, some girls are harassed, these kind of things do happen.\u201d
\nParameshwara, who later claimed to have been misquoted, was widely condemned for his televised comments, with the central government\u2019s junior home minister Kiren Rijiju describing them as \u201cirresponsible\u201d.
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t allow the shameful act of #Mass\u00adMolestation go unpunished,\u201d he said on Twitter, adding that women\u2019s safety is a \u201cmust in a civilised society\u201d.
\nLalitha Kumaraman\u00adgalam, who heads India\u2019s National Commission for Women, said Parameshwara should resign over his comments. \u201cI want to ask this minister: are Indian men so pathetic and weak that when they see a woman in western clothes on a day of revelry, they get out of control?
\n\u201cWhen will the Indian men learn to respect women? The minister should apologise to the women of the country and resign,\u201d Kumara\u00admangalam told the Press Trust of India news agency.
\nSenior Bangalore police officer Malini Krishna\u00admoorthy told no complaint had yet been filed and officers were scanning hours\u2019 worth of CCTV footage.
\n\u201cWe have appealed to the public to come forward if they have evidence in any form,\u201d the officer added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BANGALORE: An Indian minister faced a severe backlash on Wednesday after he criticised women for dressing \u201clike westerners\u201d at a New Year\u2019s eve celebration where a mob allegedly carried out a series of sex assaults. Although police have yet to charge anyone in connection with the violence on Saturday night in Bangalore, local media have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n