Molested by auto driver: woman student faces police indifference

Chennai: After a woman student wrote on Twitter about a sexual assault she faced from an auto driver in Chennai and the issues she faced while lodging a complaint on the ordeal, the police arrested the accused on Wednesday, NDTV reported.

According to the journalism student, she had gone through a horrible experience when she approached the police after she had faced the incident. She wrote on Twitter that an auto driver identified Selvam, working with Uber, sexually assaulted her by pressing her breast. She was with her friend, and both were returning to a hotel. Though both had tried to stop the driver, he managed to flee, she wrote in the post, in which Tamil Nadu Police was tagged.

Further, she wrote that there was no response from the police control room hotline, 100. A policeman came to the hotel only after 30 minutes, based on a phone call, and asked her to wait till morning to file a complaint since there were no women police officers on duty.

According to her, she went to the Semmencheri police station to file the complaint. But she was asked to write the complaint, staying outside the station, on a plain piece of paper. She wasn't allowed inside the station, saying that women are not allowed inside at night.

"The in-charge did not let us enter as women are not allowed during night," she wrote.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Josh K Thangiah answered an NDTV query about the women's struggle to register a complaint that women are not allowed inside the station at night, which is "part of women's safety." Even women police personnel were also put on duty at night, the senior official said.

Uber India replied to the student's tweet and asked her to share details.

However, the auto driver, who has been arrested and his vehicle seized, denied the woman's allegations. According to a police officer, the driver Selvam claimed that the student was intoxicated and snatched away his phone. It was when he tried to get the phone back he accidentally touched her.

To this, the student responded that the autorickshaw driver was lying. She added that CCTV footage is available. Since her friend had no cash to pay, she used her phone for the same. The driver assaulted her when she got out of the rickshaw, she said.

Police informed that they had lodged an FIR based on the student's complaint.