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Actress Assaulted For Wearing Sportswear To A Park In Bangalore, Twitter Outraged

Disha Banerjee

You would think that at least people living in the metropolitan cities of our country would be progressive enough to make public places safer for women. But even in 2020, that’s isn’t the case.

Samyuktha Hegde, an actress who has worked in South-Indian films, was recently assaulted by a woman in Bangalore and harassed by the male locals for wearing sportswear and working out in a park.

According to a report by The Indian Express, Samyuktha was with three other friends at Agara Lake and were practising hula-hooping. It was then when they were “attacked” by an elderly woman.

“It so happened that we were three girls working out and doing hula-hoops when an elderly woman came and attacked us. She said we are doing cabaret dancing and even hit one of my friends,” she said.

Image source

She claimed that the woman accused her and her friends of “indecent behaviour” and “stripping in the public”.  She took to Instagram to post videos of the incident which captures the accused woman attacking one of them.

“People in the park who knew her started supporting her and playing moral police and asking us if it is our culture to wear sportswear,” Samyuktha wrote.

She also alleged a man threatened to defame them while the police just stood and watched.

“In my line of work even false news is enough to destroy my career and he threatened me exactly of that and the police stood there and just watched,” she wrote.

Have a look at the videos and read her full post here:

As her post went viral, massive outrage broke out on social media and people online lent their support to her. Many called the incident “unacceptable” and “terrifying” for women.

It is absolutely unacceptable to slut-shame and moral-police women based on what they choose to wear, even more so to assault her for it. What hope do we have for women’s safety in our country when fellow women behave this way?

It’s not the clothes that need changing. It’s the mindset of people.

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