Two Women Face Ordeal Over Accosting Man for Masturbating in Bus

We were applauded on social media but criticised at home by family and friends, said the 2 women from Guwahati.

What’s worse is that many people are trying to give it a communal angle.

(Photo Courtesy: Shabana Islam and Daisy Baruah)

Video Editor: Deepthi Ramdas

Daisy and I had to go for a client meet on 10 November. That day, our office cab service was not available. So both Daisy and I decided to take the city bus for the client meet. Both of us work with a PR company.

We boarded the city bus at around 1:15 pm, when this horrific incident took place. The bus we took wasn’t very crowded. Both of us got a seat to sit. One behind the other, on the aisle side. After a while, a man boarded the bus and sat next to my seat.

A few minutes into the bus ride, my friend Daisy shouted and pointed towards the man, who was flashing his genitals and was masturbating at his seat. When Daisy first saw him, she asked two boys sitting next to her, to look at what the man was doing. But they just smiled and ignored her.

Daisy was disgusted by both the man’s act and fellow passengers’ response.

She stood up from her seat and called out to me. I didn’t hear all this because I was listening to music and I didn’t even notice hat that man was doing. We both got angry and shouted at the man. Daisy took out her slipper and started beating him and I decided to record the whole incident as evidence.

During the incident, we asked the co-passengers to come forward and help us take that man to the police station, but no one came forward except one man, Prashant Kalita.

Later, we asked the driver and the conductor to stop the bus at the nearest police station. I would also like to mention here that, when the bus driver slowed down to stop the bus, many male passengers yelled at the driver said, “why are you wasting our time, don’t you know that these are common things that happen in buses and other public transport.” Some laughed and told us why we are creating a scene.

The bus stopped at Paltan Bazaar police station and with the help of Prashant Kalita, we took that man to the police station and filed an FIR.

The bus stopped at Paltan Bazaar police station and with the help of Prashant Kalita, we took that man to the police station and filed an FIR.(Photo Courtesy: Shabana and Daisy)

Both Daisy and I received a lot of appreciation on social media when we shared the video but on a personal front, we were disappointed to a great extent.

Both of us are married women, so when the local news channel covered our story they (our families) got very upset as they felt good “bahus” of good families don’t do such a thing.

It was difficult to explain to them what happened to us.

My family member switched channels whenever news of us accosting the man who masturbated in the bus would flash on the local channels. Daisy's family stopped talking to her. No one in our family wanted to discuss with us about what happened. They kept pretending as if nothing ever happened.

We even received calls from media asking for our interview, or calling us to the studio but we could not give a positive response as our families didn’t approve of it.

Luckily, my husband has been very supportive.

What’s worse is that many people are trying to give it a communal angle.

The reason behind this is because the accused has a name from a particular community. This is very disturbing, because by giving a communal angle, we are just diluting an important issue.

Right now, the accused is in police custody and he’ll be produced before the district magistrate soon for a hearing.