By IANS
Guwahati : Three youths, two of them postgraduates, were arrested here Monday on charges of stripping a tribal woman during a protest march, after photographs of the horrifying act made national headlines and triggered outrage.
The incident took place Saturday during a clash between local residents and tribal protestors belonging to the All Adivasi Students Association (AASA), in which one person was killed and more than 200 wounded.
As the mob violence spilled over to various city localities, a group of youths stripped a young Adivasi woman in full public gaze and later kicked and punched her private parts. The photographs of the terrorized woman running naked for her life in one of the city’s main thoroughfares in broad daylight were splashed in local newspapers, evoking a nationwide debate about the police inaction.
“This is a shameful act. We have arrested three youths after identifying them from television footages and newspaper photographs,” Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told journalists. The three youths hail from good families, said police.
The incident evoked angry reaction from rights groups and from all sections of the society.
“This was a moronic act committed by a hoodlum fringe and this incident was perhaps the darkest face ever Guwahati has shown to the outside world,” an angry Mala Baishya, a college teacher, said.
Some people who saw the panic-stricken woman running naked took off their shirts and helped her cover herself, before arranging a vehicle to ferry her to the nearest police station.
“At least there were some good people who came to her rescue,” Pritam Bordoloi, a doctor, said.
Police have framed charges ranging from rape to molestation on the three youths.
The chief minister has announced a financial assistance of Rs.100,000 to the woman.
“The woman is now totally traumatized after the incident… We are planning to send her out of Assam for counselling and are thinking of putting her in a convent so that she does not suffer from humiliation and shame,” a senior tribal leader told IANS requesting not to be named.
The identity of the woman was being protected to avoid further mental trauma to the victim and her family.