MYSURU: Social media, which has become a strong tool for women calling out perpetrators, came to the aid of people venting out their anger about several molestation incidents that took place at the Dasara open street festival in Mysuru. Many narrated their horror of experiencing sexual abuse and catcalling and some even wrote about being stalked.
A post by a woman on social media platform Instagram read: “A guy spanked my derrière so hard that I fell on my face on the ground, and this happened when I was with my brother.”
Many of the revelations came after a popular troll page, Mysuru Memes with 88,700 followers, put out a message inviting people to share their experiences at the open street festival. According to the administrators of the page, the post triggered close to 100 first-person accounts of harassment.
One woman wrote: “One man tried to grab my breasts, but I managed to twist his arms and he escaped.” A young man posted that he too was groped. But when he tried to catch the culprit, the man escaped. “Even boys were not spared,” he wrote.
Many posted comments about groups of drunk boys who were passing lewd remarks at women. Another post said, “There were these couple of guys who were totally drunk and sat on a footpath and were commenting on each and every girl.”
Ironically, the poster of the street festival bears the slogan ‘your safety, our priority’. This was shared widely with netizens criticising the poor handling of security at the event.