#TalkingStalking | Amar Colony Girl Hit With Semen-Filled Balloon

The girls were reportedly asked to wear a badge stating, ‘We don’t want to play Holi’, by older women from the area.

(Photo Courtesy: iStock/Facebook)

Did you think that a first year graduate student from Lady Sri Ram College, New Delhi being attacked with a water balloon filled with semen was a stand-alone incident? If you answered ‘yes’, then you are most definitely wrong.

In another similar, and deeply unsettling incident, one more girl, a friend of a student from Lady Sri Ram College, was hit on the head with a semen-filled balloon on Wednesday, 28 February. The victim said that she knew it was semen, because “it felt sticky in her hair”.

The balloons that were thrown on us, had some kind of gooey material coming out of them. We took a written apology from the family of the girl. We need to change the mindset of people who say that ‘balloons phenkna toh holi khelne ka tareeka hai. No, it is not.

Victim

However, she does not have evidence of the same as she washed her hair immediately.

The girl, along with many others gathered at the Amar Colony police station to file an FIR after the incident. At the police station, a number of older women from the neighbourhood accused them of not knowing ‘how to play holi’.

The girls were then reportedly asked to wear a badge that said, “We don’t want to play Holi”, by the same women.

According to the victim, the family from whose house the balloon was flung at her, apologised, and assured her that the action would not be repeated.

The student who was hit with a semen-filled balloon earlier took to Instagram and wrote:

‘It dried white on my black leggings, and the foreign smell clearly indicated that it wasn’t water. Of course, at that point in time, I didn’t guess what it really was. Not even close to what it really was. You see, nobody had thrown semen at me before yesterday...’

‘This Holi Needs to Be Different’

The LSR Students’ Union has called for a protest on 1 March, in the light of these incidents. In a statement, the Union said that there are those who “play Holi”, and then those who fear stepping out on that day.

(Photo courtesy: Facebook)

The Students’ Union had issued the following statement on Facebook earlier, elaborating the security arrangements made by the college. They have also demanded strict policing till Holi, which falls on 2 March.

(Photo courtesy: Facebook)

Women Stalked and Hit With Water Balloons

Such incidents have been reported in and around Lady Shri Ram College for many years now. People reportedly lurk around the college, armed with water balloons, waiting for women to step out. Done under the garb of “celebrating Holi,” women are expected to be okay with the assault, and are expected to take it in their stride.

Stalking is not acceptable, and hitting women out of the blue, most definitely is not ok.

Unfettered stalking leads to such crimes, and that is why The Quint is running a campaign to make stalking a non-bailable offence.

Make Stalking a Non-Bailable Offence

Do you know that stalking is a bailable offence under the Indian criminal law? This allows stalkers to get bail without serious scrutiny, often putting victims at risk of facing acid attacks, rape, and sometimes even murder.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB):

• There has been a 33 percent rise in stalking cases. As many as 4,699 cases were reported in 2014 and 6,266 cases were reported in 2015
• Around 26 percent of the cases ended in conviction in 2015
• Around 35 percent of the cases ended in conviction in 2014
• In 2015, 83 percent of the accused were given bail before the investigation ended
• In 2014, 85 percent of the accused were given bail before the investigation ended
• Around 60 percent of all accused were men aged between 18 and 30. Around 2 percent were juveniles between the ages of 16 and 18.

This is why The Quint has launched a petition along with Varnika Kundu and MP Shashi Tharoor to appeal that Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh make stalking a non-bailable offence. Sign our petition here.

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