Bengaluru cops rescued' drivers, left stripped Tanzanian girl to mob's mercy

Bengaluru: A day after the DC expose on the plight of the Tanzanian girl student who was stripped off her clothes and humiliated by an angry mob after an accident in Hesaraghatta in which the girl and her four friends were not involved, the city police went into damage control mode.

Read: Bengaluru: Mob strips Tanzanian girl, torches her car as police watch

While responding to the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's queries, city police said that a criminal case had been registered and four people arrested, but failed to clarify that the four men in detention were charged with arson and were not part of the mob that had beaten up the young African woman from Dar es Salaam.

Read: Africa angry, demands justice after mob strips Tanzanian girl in Bengaluru

On Wednesday, police picked up the five Tanzanian students from their homes and took them to Peenya police station, where they recorded their statements before taking them to Sapthagiri Hospital for medical examination.

The swift action by the police was carried out when the four victims including the girl were on their way to go public with their side of the story at the Alternative Law Forum.

Read: Road rage gets a foreign face

According to Mr Bosco Kaweesi, the legal adviser of the All African Student Association, the police took all the students to the hospital and kept them in a locked room for hours together with their phones switched off, while their fellow students along with journalists waited outside the hospital.

"When our student leaders along with journalists reached the hospital, they were denied permission to interact with the victim students," said Mr Kaweesi.

Read: Bengaluru mob violence: 4 arrested, Sushma asks CM to take strict action

"The police are in damage control mode now," he said, adding, "The police had taken the statements from the victims on how they were all thrashed and the girl was stripped and shoved around but they have conveniently omitted the part where the girl approached the police to lodge a complaint on that fateful night and was turned away."

"If the police can take her complaint on Wednesday, why didn't they do it on Sunday night," he asked.

Read: Bengaluru police 'hijack' African victim students of hate crime from scribes

Meanwhile, speaking to Deccan Chronicle, T.R. Suresh, DCP, North Division Claimed, "We have recorded the statement of the victim in which she has mentioned that her top was torn off and she was physically assaulted and humiliated by the mob. We have added the appropriate IPC section along with the arson case that has been registered at the Soladevanahalli police station."

When asked why the police did not register the girl's complaint on Sunday night, the DCP said, "The police had rushed to the spot and rescued two African students, one of them was the driver of the second car and took them to NRR Hospital and then subsequently to the police station."

Read: Tanzanian girl assault in Bengaluru: ‘Cops toned down victims’ complaints’

The DCP did not comment on the condition of the Tanzanian woman who was stripped, humiliated and standing with the torn clothes and her other friends who were left to the mercy of the mob, seeking to revenge the death of Shabana Taj, the 35-year-old who was walking on the street in Hesaraghatta with her husband when she was run over by a car driven by a Sudanese student.

Read: Tanzania issues note verbale after mob strips girl in Bengaluru