It Was The Police's Fault, They Left The Tanzanian Girl At Mob's Mercy, Admits Karnataka Home Minister

The incident involving a Tanzanian girl in Bengaluru on Sunday night could have been prevented had the city police not left the girl at the mercy of the mob.

Karnataka's home minister G Parmeshwara on Thursday said that a police patrol vehicle passing by the north Bengaluru area on Sunday night had reached the spot while the mob had gathered, but decided to leave just one policeman there.

One India

"Hundreds of people had gathered in the area. A message received by the police said that four occupants of a Wagon R car were stopped by the mob. Jamal Ibrahim, an MBA student from Jain University, and his friends were being attacked by the mob. At this time our Hoysala patrol vehicle was passing by. The vehicle dropped one policeman at the spot and took Ibrahim to hospital," home minister said during a briefing.

The situation did not appear critical to them

The Tanzanian girl who was among Ibrahim's friends left behind was thrashed and allegedly stripped by the mob. Defending the decision to leave the students behind and deploy only one policeman at the spot, the minister said that the situation did not appear to be critical.

He, however, admitted that the driver, Ismail, was taken to hospital because he had been beaten up by the mob. The minister also brazenly revealed the girl's name before the media, unmindful of legal curbs against identifying sexual attack survivors.

All You Needed To Know About The Tragic Event In Bengaluru

Parmeshwara disclosed that it was not the policeman but an Iranian student who rescued the girl from the mob. Regretting the incident, the minister, however, said the girl was neither stripped nor paraded naked.

Reading out from the girl's statement, the minister said, 'Only her top was torn off."

The statements by the minister come in the backdrop of allegations of the foreign students' spokesmen that the police had failed to contain the situation.

The minister though said he is waiting for a probe report on the incident to take action.

The failure to deploy riot police in the area for nearly an hour after the accident that triggered the violence, the abandoning of three foreign students to fend for themselves and the failure to register a suo motu case though a police team had seen the woman being attacked are among the major bunglings by the city police.

When questions were raised about these faults, the minister said: "All these will be revealed in the probe report and if yes, we will take actions against officers."

However, no timeframe was given for the submission of this report.