BENGALURU: A man, who was clicking pictures of women on Commercial Street, learnt a lesson after a woman journalist confronted him when she saw the pictures on his phone.
The accused, Manoj Roy (40), of Kolkata and an employee of a marketing firm in Chennai for the last six years, had moved into a rented house in Kamakshipalya, Bengaluru a month ago. He is said to be unmarried.
The 25-year-old journalist, who works with a morning daily, narrated the incident on a Facebook post. “I was shopping on Commercial Street around 4:45 pm, with three of my friends walking ahead. I just looked up to see this man — approaching from the opposite direction — take my picture on his phone! The flash went off and he quickly lowered the phone, trying to walk away. It took me a second to realise what happened before I ran after him, screaming at him to stop.
“...I waylaid him at the corner next to Krishniah Chetty and snatched his phone. He had managed to lock it and pretended not to know the passcode... I insisted he show me the gallery, but he pretended not to know what I meant, so I grabbed the phone and went through it anyway. I was aghast to find not just my photo (which he clicked moments earlier), but almost 20-25 photos of other random women he had snapped on the same street in the past few hours!
“...I flagged down a passing traffic constable and explained the situation to him; he informed his law-and-order counterparts and I accompanied him as he brought the pervert down to the Commercial Street police station. She wrote, “Cops said he would have circulated them on Facebook and WhatsApp and maybe even morphed the images on websites.”
Speaking about women not standing up for themselves in such situations, the journalist added, “Far too many women stay silent or brush aside such incidents, thinking there’s no need for the unnecessary drama — but they couldn’t be more wrong. If we don’t stand up for ourselves and take action against such perverts, they will never stop.”
A police inspector from Commercial Street police station told Express, “The accused seems to have lost mental stability. We are investigating his background. We have booked a case under the Karnataka Police Act Section 92 (Q) (wilfully pushes, hustles or obstructs any passenger in a street, or disturbs public peace or order, by violent movements, menacing gestures...)”