BENGALURU: A 25-year-old woman from Kerala paid a heavy price for taking a lift from a stranger in the Madiwala police limits. The victim, who stays at a paying guest accommodation in Koramangala 1st Block, had gone to her hometown. She returned to the city in a private bus and got down at the Silk Board Junction at 5 am on Sunday. While she was looking for transportation, the accused, who was in a silver hatchback car, offered to drop her for Rs 200. She got into the car and was dropped till the PG. When she was sending him the money through UPI, the accused pulled her close to him and sexually harassed her.
When she tried to take a picture of the car, he escaped. She saw a CCTV in the neighbouring building and when she checked the footage, she got a part of the car’s registration number. The Madiwala police have registered a case.
The incident occurred at 5.24 am on the 5th Main Road in Teachers Colony at Jakkasandra. The victim, working in a private company in the city, filed the complaint in the afternoon after discussing it with her family and friends. After the accused misbehaved with her, she came out of the car and warned him. He escaped after seeing her taking pictures on her mobile phone.
When contacted, the victim refused to comment.
“We checked the CCTV footage of a building where the incident happened. The images are blurry and only a few numbers of the registration plate are visible. We are checking the CCTV footage in the vicinity to get the exact number of the car. The victim just got into the car, which was not even a cab. When he offered to drop her, she should have ignored him,” said an officer, who is part of the investigations. A case of sexual harassment under Section 354A of IPC has been registered against the unidentified accused.