Assam director general of police Jayanta Choudhury here on Friday said that one more youth was arrested on charges of molesting a girl while 12 others involved in the incident have been identified.
Informing that four persons have been arrested in connection with the incident in front of a bar on the GS Road on Monday night, Mr Choudhury told reporters that police have collected all the video footage to identify the culprits responsible for molesting the girl.
Admitting that police should have acted more effectively in identifying and picking up the accused, Mr Choudhury, however, claimed that city police was formulating a long term strategy to contain this menace. “We have also convened a meeting of the bar owners to discuss the problem,” he said admitting that police force is short of manpower to tackle swelling population of Guwahati which has crossed 10 lakh.
Narrating the sequence of event leading to molestation of a girl on Monday night, Mr Choudhury said that four girls and two boys, apparently known to each other, entered the bar on Monday night, where they subsequently had a brawl and were driven out by private security guards of bar.
“When the six came out on the streets, some youths taking advantage of the situation pushed and pulled one of the girls and attempted to molest her,” Mr Choudhury said. Calling it a shameful act, women and child development minister Krishna Tirath said that she strongly condemns it. “Police should take strict action against the culprits so that such incidents are not repeated. Women feel unsafe if such kind of incidents take place. I will write to the state authorities seeking their report and the action taken by the police,” she said
The BJP also hit out at the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government in the state. Terming the incident as “shameful” the party alleged that the state government did not initiate prompt action in the incident, resulting in a few of the accused still remaining absconding.
"It is a shameful incident...The BJP demands that immediate action be taken and the perpetrators of that violence go through a speedy trial and punishment is given to them," BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.
The Assam DGP also asserted that one isolated incident does not prove that there are predators lurking in the city.
Admitting that people took the advantage of the situation, Mr Choudhury however said that not a single person involved in the incident would be allowed to go scot-free.
The eyewitness of the incident said that some youths and photographers, who recorded the video of the girl being molested by few youths, resisted the police from taking the custody of the girl on pretext that police came without a lady constable.
Meanwhile, the victim girl has refused to talk to mediaperson who wanted to know her version on the incident.
The incident has triggered massive reaction as outraged activists put up hoardings across the city with photographs of the 12 culprits and asking people to inform the police about their whereabouts.
The NGO activist, Avijit Sarma, in a statement said, “We have put up hoardings in some prominent places including all the bus stops in the city. The basic objective of putting the photographs of the culprits is to help police to bring the culprits to the book and to create an awareness so that such things do not occur in future.”
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has also expressed concern over the incident and said that a separate task force would be set up to deal with such crimes against women in Guwahati and other places in the state.
The administration is also planning a crackdown on bars and other such establishments, which are open till late night, violating government guidelines. The Opposition political parties have also condemned the incident and asked the state administration to take necessary steps to check such incidents.
It is also significant that residents of Guwahati have been agitating against the growing number of late night pubs and bars in Guwahati.