Two eve-teasers arrested, and an eve-teaser murdered in India

I read two blog-worthy stories out of India today regarding eve-teasers (street harassers), the first entails police arresting two harassers, the second is about men murdering a chronic harasser (!).

1. From the Times of India:

“Two college students were arrested by the Gurgaon police on Monday for teasing two women passengers in an auto rickshaw…The victims were targeted by the accused while they were travelling in a pink auto, which is being run in the city exclusively for female passengers. Police said the incident took place in Sector 23 around 2 p.m. on January 13.”

Gurgaon is just outside of New Delhi and this arrest seems to be part of the increase in police vigilance to stop eve teasing in the Delhi area, an initiative that was announced at the beginning of this year. I suspect there will be many more stories like this one if the police continue to harshly punish harassers.

2. From Express Buzz:

“Eight persons were arrested for murdering a man who teased a woman at Kumaran Nagar on Sunday. Police said Prakash (35) alias MGR of Sridevi Nagar, Alapakkam, was at Vazhaithope Pagudhi, Kumaran Nagar near West Mambalam, playing cards with his friends Sakthi Saravanan and Babu when a 10-member gang led by Prabhakaran (30) stabbed Prakash and his friends. They were taken to hospital where Prakash died.

Prakash who lived at Vazhaithope Pagudhi 10 years ago used to play cards with his friends after getting drunk. They reportedly had a habit of teasing girls who passed by. Even though he shifted his house to another area, he kept on coming back to Vazhaithope to meet his friends and continued teasing girls.

This angered Prabhakaran, who lived in that area, and he  often picked up quarrels with Prakash. On Sunday, Prakash,  as usual, played cards with his friends and later teased a girl, a relative of Prabhakaran. She complained to Prabhakaran, who along with his brother Bhaskaran and eight friends murdered Prakash. Police arrested eight of them, including the brother and are on the look out for the other two.”

Woah. I’m all for bystander intervention, but not with force or violence unless it’s absolutely necessary. Certainly there are better ways to stop harassers than by murdering them (…right?).