Tanzanian Girl Case: Stripped, Shamed or Outraged? And What Difference Does It Make?

It's getting a bit confusing: India's foreign minister says the incident was 'shameful'; Karnataka's Home Minister says there was no stripping; the police are probing a modesty rap. But what difference does it make?

Situation became sensitive after a foreign national in his car mowed down a 35 year old woman in Hesaraghatta in Bengaluru on Sunday. The angry mob put fire to the car later. | EPS

BENGALURU: A day after news broke of the alleged stripping and parading of a Tanzanian student in Bengaluru, politicians stepped into the muddy waters so that there was lack of clarity on the basic facts of the case.

In the morning Saturday, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she felt 'shameful' about the assault. But merely hours later, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara and senior police officers of the state insisted that the student of business administration had not in fact been stripped and paraded.

All the same, the case registered by the Bengaluru police specifically mentions the charge of outraging the modesty of woman. The investigation is going on.

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The student's complaint -- which she managed to get the police to register only after approaching the top brass --- clearly states that she was stripped by a few local people who were protesting after a car driven by an Sudanese student ran over a woman, Shabana Taj.

The first information report (FIR) states that a case under Section IPC 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman) has been registered.

At first the police did not register the case when the girl went straight to a police station to lodge her complaint. The girl and her friends then sought legal opinion, and was advised to go to the Alternative Legal Forum. It was only upon this that the police scrambled to receive her complaint.

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