A man’s World

When city resident Isha Chitnis filmed a man masturbating in front of her and her colleague-friend, she headed straight to the police to file a police complaint. But, she wasn’t prepared for what happened next — the police refused to take any action. “I went straight to the police with the video, got a cop back to the bogie and even showed him where it happened. He asked me to move to another compartment!” recalls Isha. “I remember not feeling angry at all. I was very disgusted,” she says. 

On her way to Nashik for a press conference about child abuse, Isha remembers hoping to make a good day out of it. “It was supposed to be a good day for me, but then this happened.” She recollects how futile all her efforts were. “I did everything that I could do at that time. Went to the police, filed a complaint, submitted proof even, but to no avail. I tweeted the video to the railway ministry also, but I didn’t get any response.”

Pooja Nair

A feeling of helplessness took over her and she has no one to blame but the authorities. “It was when the police refused to help that I felt so helpless. This is an authority that is supposed to protect its women, children and people, but when you go to them with complaints of something wrong happening, what do they do? They ignore you, even ask you to turn a blind eye to what is wrong!” she says. 

It was only when her video went viral that the police jumped to take action. This is not the first case the Mumbai Police has ignored and faced flak for it. Just last week, Pooja Nair from Bengaluru posted her harrowing experience on Facebook, saying a man masturbated at her on a local Churchgate-bound train. When the man started masturbating, she asked the other women in the coach for the railway helpline number, but before that the accused left the handicapped coach he was in and approached the ladies compartment she was in.

In her original post on the social networking site, she said how the man threatened to rape her. “He told me he would rape me. I told him to do it (sic).” When Pooja filed a complaint with the Railway Police, they laughed it off. “I told the person on the line all the details. The train was just approaching Kandivali. Which compartment, what time — all of it. Then I told him that this person had also called us what he did. And then the person on the helpline laughed. He found it funny. I asked him whether they’d pick this person up at Kandivali. He cut the call (sic).”

The police officer who accompanied Isha to the compartment suggested she should move to another space.

Lata Argade, who is a part of a commuters’ federation, Tejaswini Mahila Pravashi Sangathan, says harassment cases like these are an everyday thing. “There are so many women who face something like this every day — it is not new,” she says. When asked what exactly was it that caused the police such a lapse in action, Lata puts the blame on the authorities. Recalling a similar incident from a mere weeks ago, she says, “I got on a late Khopoli-bound train from Dadar and till Kurla, the compartment has five hawkers in the ladies compartment, but not one constable. Why?” She credits this to the fact that the railway police is always low on staff and for big stations like a Kurla or Dadar, it becomes impossible for them to judge which compartment and which platform to assign to the constable. But what baffles all these women is that despite the presence of CCTV surveillance cameras and the positioning of not just the GRP but also the RPF at the stations, these men think they can do so. “These men know that the police won’t do anything — they can escape and they do,” says Lata. 

But amidst this chaos, Isha and Lata both find the women’s resistance appraisable. “Women today are very well aware of their power. They also know that in most cases the police won’t do much, so they take that man down and then and there give him a piece of their mind,” says Lata. When Isha posted the video online, there were several men who supported her decision and applauded her quick thinking, but there were several men who accused her of being in the wrong. “Many men told me that I shouldn’t have filmed the video, that it was a prank, that I was filming it to masturbate to it. This kind of online trolling wasn’t new. But after I clarified the first few times, I stopped responding to these trolls, it wouldn’t help,” she said. But there were several women who got back at these trolls for her, supported her. “My Facebook inbox is filled with supportive messages from both men and women. But, it is mostly women who I’m glad to know have my back,” she concludes.