BENGALURU: Four persons were arrested on Thursday in connection with the molestation and assault of a woman near her house in Kammanahalli on New Year's day, a shocking incident caught on camera that caused national outrage.
City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood gave the names of the arrested as Aiyappa (19), Leno (20), Sudesh (20) and Somashekar (24), all residents of Kammanahalli.
The neighbourhood boys had been stalking the victim for four or five days and molested her when she was returning home after celebrating the New Year.
"Two others are still at large, and we have identified them. We are hopeful of nabbing them at the earliest,” Sood said. The police sources said, "of the two, James was nabbed subsequently (formal arrest is yet to be made) while the other whose nickname is Puppy is yet to be arrested.
Aiyappa, the main culprit, and Sudesh are delivery boys while Leno is a BCom dropout and works as a helper and Somashekar works as a driver.
"On January 1, at 2.41am, Aiyappa who was riding the scooter had intercepted the woman on the road. Leno was riding pillion. The other two accused who were present alerted them by honking when they saw a vehicle approaching,” an investigating official said.
The police said, "Initially looking at the footage we thought it was the public who were watching the incident. But a few CCTV images that we collected showed that they were in fact the other two accomplices."
All the accused were in an inebriated state and were going around on bikes screaming 'Happy New Year' and creating nuisance. As soon as they saw the victim and her friend in an auto, they followed them from a distance of around half a kilometre, the police sources said.
"The victim used to come to her friend’s place very often but lived in a different place. However, for the past one week she has been staying with her friend, the sources said.
“The victim who is in touch with the police refused to come to the police station for identifying the accused. However, the police sent images on WhatsApp and she confirmed Aiyappa’s identity. The police investigations too had confirmed that these were indeed the accused,” a police source said.
Sood said, "We are in touch with the victim and are building her confidence. We have ensured to protect her identity and will help her in every way."
The arrests come three days after a CCTV footage surfaced showing two scooter-borne men accost a woman while one molests her.
In the footage, one of the two men is first seen approaching the woman, forcing himself on her and dragging her to the scooter, before pinning her down. As she resists and tries to free herself, he pushes her down on the road and he and the pillion rider both escape from the scene.