Mangaluru: A Facebook post by a 22-year-old woman from Mangaluru named Rashmi Shetty, pursuing MA in Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions in Bihar has gone viral in social media after she was harassed by a youth in broad daylight in the central area of the city.
“I could’ve let it go because he didn’t touch me or anything. But I didn’t want to, because the past years of my life have been infested with these experiences,” said a furious Rashmi recalling the incident.
Sharing her thoughts on the incident, Rashmi said, “Every woman in the county goes through atleast one or the other kind of harrowing experience of dealing with a lurking harasser in her life. Despite series of self-protection measures taken by most women in their daily lives, not a day passes by without a new incident of sexual harassment.”
Not the first time experience for Rashmi Shetty, leered in broad daylight today while walking from St.Aloysius College to Balmatta circle but her resolve made her not to brush aside the incident.
She chose to not give the perpetrator the satisfaction of having scared her and chose to retaliate instead, akin to taking the “bull by the horns.”
In her scathing Facebook post, Rashmi has narrated the entire incident in brief and her response to it. She has divulged the number plate of the guy’s scooter and is contemplating taking the matter further.
Talking to newskarnataka.com, Rashmi Shetty did not rule out the possibility of lodging a police complaint but preferred positive response from law enforcing agencies.
“When lusty men are let off the hooks on such occasions, they get emboldened to commit more crimes against women without shame or any fear. So this time I decided to expose one such man on social media because I wanted to find out about him and teach him a lesson,” Rashmi said and hence decided to go one step further to share her experience on social media.
After sharing nightmarish experience on Facebook, she shared the vehicle picture with all other relevant details.
She concluded her post with a series blunt words sending a clear message to the wrong doer. Rashmi honestly wished that none gives a communal tinge to make matters worse in her concluding remarks to newskarnataka.com
Read the Facebook post here.
KA 19 EU 0932
You thought I’d be scared, didn’t you? You thought I’d be ashamed, didn’t you?
I was followed by the guy who this scooter belongs to today in broad daylight. In a busy street in Mangalore. 3pm in the noon in the center of the city, from Aloysius degree college to Balmatta, to a guy dares to follow a woman who’s walking while there is a swarm of cops thirty steps behind.
You think you can halt a million times ahead of me and honk at me while I cross you as you take a good fucking look at my butt? And that would embarrass me enough to cry at my fate of being a woman in this country, this generation, this world? You think I’d freak out and run so fast that I fucking run into your arms? You think you stopping and making phone calls to your gang would would threaten me into never getting out alone? So confident that if I asked for help if never be able to prove your fault? And that people wouldn’t take my side or take me seriously?
Well, guess what? I take my side. These streets are as much mine as they are of undeserving assholes like you. You or a hundred like you will not scare me into staying home and not being free. This is a message from all the strong girls to you and your likes: if you try curtailing our freedom, we will fight back. And we will knock you down. I was only waiting for you to make a move so I can smack your face with my heels- the same ones you were trying so hard to catch up with. And you think you can do anything under the veil of anonymity? Here, I’m not anonymous anymore. And I won’t let you be either. And let me repeat, I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU.
I hope this reaches you somehow.
You thought I’d be scared, didn’t you? You thought I’d be ashamed, didn’t you?
You’re the one who should be both.
And yeah, F**K YOU.
