No evidence of mass molestation, says Bengaluru police chief

Days after the uproar over alleged incidents of mass molestation on New Year’s Eve in Bengaluru, the city’s police commissioner said police did not find evidence of “any kind of molestation” in the footage from 60-odd CCTV cameras.

“We started looking into the whole video footage from approximately 45-60 cameras,” Praveen Sood, the police commissioner of Bengaluru city, said.

“It takes time; the whole team was looking at the camera footage and looking for molestation in the video. We could not find any sign of molestation,” Sood said.

He added four separate cases had been registered on the basis of media reports. He added that four youths had been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a woman from the northeast.

According to the police, the images of women crying on the shoulders of policewomen and friends were not linked to incidents of molestation, but reactions to stampede when the police resorted to lathi-charge to control the crowd.

The alleged molestation and Karnataka Home Ninister G Parameswara’s statement that “such things happen” has raised a storm, with women’s groups questioning the attitude of the society and the authorities in India’s tech hub. The minister has since said he had been quoted out of context.