KASARGOD: A law graduate’s Facebook post has gone viral where she claimed she thrashed a man for flashing at her at Kanhangad railway station. Kavitha J Kalloor, a native of Kanhangad and final-year student of SDM Law College in Mangalore, said she thrashed the man “in white” because he should never repeat it with any other woman.
Seeing her post, where she posted the photos of the alleged perpetrator from behind, another woman messaged her saying the same man — seemingly aged around 55 to 60 years — had flashed at her too, at Kanhangad railway station.“He is a serial offender. When I return to Kanhangad, I will file a police complaint against him,” Kavitha told Express.
The incident happened on Sunday evening when she was waiting for Ernad Express to go to Mangalore. “This man wearing a white shirt and lungi was acting fishy around me. Then he flashed at me, and started masturbating,” she said. Kavitha said she could have taken a video of the person and posted on Facebook to garner some support. “But I don’t want such empty support on social media,” she said.
She kept her phone down, caught hold of his collar and thrashed him, according to her post. “The man fell at my feet and said he will never do it again and walked away,” she said. There were several men and women on the platform. “But not one person came forward to warn him. I was expecting some real support in the real world,” she said.
Kavitha said she did not call the police then because she was on her way to attend her final examination.
After seeing her post, many women inboxed her sharing their experience. “Flashing and public masturbation is very common in Kerala. It is done by well-dressed men and by jobless persons too. It is done in buses, trains and railway stations,” she said.
Last April, a girl in Kochi recorded a youth masturbating in Amritsar-Kochuveli Express and posted the video on social media to shame him. This February, a Delhi University student lodged a complaint against a middle-aged man for allegedly masturbating beside her in a bus in Delhi. She said the co-passengers “ignored it”. Last month, Uber fired a driver after a female passenger complained that he was masturbating during the ride through Mumbai’s Andheri area.