Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad   

Spit and scoot: women face `smear' campaign

Shubhra Tandon

Offender `strikes' in the evening near corporate offices

HYDERABAD: Is it an `Urban Legend' in the making? Adding to the harassment of working women on the city roads are incidents of men spewing stinking red pan on them.

And going by victims' versions, there appears to be only one person behind this — a fat, shabby looking guy between the age of 30 and 35 years riding an old Vespa scooter — whose modus operandi is to spit on women wearing light shade clothes and scoot.

And his area of operation appears to be the busy Somajiguda, Raj Bhavan Road, Khairatabad and Banjara Hills Road No. 1 areas where hundreds of corporate offices are located. Some women faced the predicament in front of Shopper's Stop and Mayfair too.

Yamini, a senior executive from an MNC, says: "It have faced the problem twice and I know five other women who, too, have encountered it. It seems that he attacks only working women between 5.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. which is the time when most working women are out on roads returning home."

Agree Rajni and Chandni who met with a similar fate on their way back from office. "I think this is a way of men deriving pleasure out of cheap thrills. This is disgusting. Many of my friends who are natives of the city say this is a recent phenomenon," says Ms. Chandni, working for a software company.

Ms. Rajni, another employee of the same company, chips in: "As I was walking back from Mayfair, a guy spat on my trouser but as I turned around I couldn't find him."

"He is a grungy-looking guy and rides an old ramshackle scooter," says Shalini, another working woman who has seen his face. The man spat on her as she was trying to cross the road in front of CARE Hospital.

Other women who got to see his face also gave a similar description.

Apprehensions

Apprehensive about approaching the police or discussing it with the office management or their spouses, the women are helpless and suffer the ignominy in silence.

"Maybe, some policewomen dressed in white should be put on a vigil around this area for a week so that the guy can be nabbed," suggests Ms. Yamini. (Names have been changed.)

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