Two men arrested in a pub over molesting woman in New Delhi

An incident in the upscale Greater Kailash II area late on Thursday night outside a popular pub and disco club has once again brought to the fore the issue of women being unsafe in the capital. Though the arrests have been prompt in this case, the fact that the accused are owners of a private firm in Lajpat Nagar and the victim, a 27-year-old woman, is a resident of C R Park has raised serious questions about the profile of men involved in such incidents.

According to additional commissioner (southeast) Virender Singh Chahal, the woman had come to the pub with some of her acquaintances. "She had come out of the pub and was standing outside when four men on two bikes approached her. The accused were on Suzuki bikes. She tried to ignore them but the accused started passing lewd comments on her," said Chahal. The incident took place around 1am on Thursday night.

Sources at the C R Park police station claimed that the accused had even tried to touch her by encircling her with their bikes. She went inside the pub to save herself. Senior officials denied that she was beaten up by the accused. "The victim approached us the next morning and we registered a case of molestation, outraging the modesty of a woman and wrongful restraint . We have arrested the two brothers from Lajpat Nagar. Our investigations have revealed that two more accused are absconding. We are questioning the brothers and hope to nab all the accused soon," said Chahal.

In 2010, there was a spurt in rape and molestation cases, including the abduction and gangrape of a young BPO staffer in Dhaula Kuan. There were 489 rape incidents as against 459 in 2009. The figure for 2006 was 609, 581 for 2007 and 466 for 2008. There was a rise in molestation cases as well this year — from last year's 532 to 585. While 2008 had witnessed 597 cases, there were 835 such incidents in 2007.

The rape per lakh population has shown an increase to 2.8 from last year's 2.65. The figure was 4.16 in 2005 and 3.82 in 2006, the highest in the last decade. Of the persons arrested for rape, 52 were relatives, 65 friends, 222 neighbours and 130 other known persons. In only 20 cases, rapes were committed by strangers.

In molestation cases, neighbours were accused in 42% of the cases, while 4% were friends and 6% relatives.