Dasara, a festival that signifies the victory of good over evil, was anything but a celebration of good for women in Mysuru recently. An open-street festival was held in Mysuru as part of Dasara festivities on October 13. What was meant to be a happy celebration turned into a nightmare, as several women took to social media to share incidents of sexual abuse that they encountered; all the stories carried the hashtag, #MeToo . Since October 13, there have been hundreds of messages online, shaming men who openly touched and groped women and children. One post read, “One man tried to grab my boobs. When I tried to grab his arm, he escaped.”Recounting her horror, Ashika Appaiah, a postgraduate student from Mysuru, says, “I had heard so much about the festivities, so I went to watch it along with two international students from my college. We walked till where the food mela was on, and all along people were trying to touch us, passing lewd comments and trying to take pictures with us. It was disgusting. They assumed that none of us knew Kannada, and said some really nasty stuff. When I yelled back, they ganged up against us. It was me against five men. That is how they scare the girls away. The worst part is that cops were watching and did nothing.”The horror wasn’t restricted to the open street festival. A similar incident took place at the cleanliness drive that was held by volunteers of the street festival. A Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) volunteer says, “There were several girls who were part of the cleanliness drive. A mob of people who were present there passed cheap comments. When I called them out for this, some 15 men roughed me up.”MCC has been promoting the Dasara festivities online, and a volunteer tells us that they have received more than 200 messages of sexual assault, with the #MeToo, since the open street. “It is disgusting. We feel ashamed about what happened, since we are the ones who have been promoting the events,” he says, on the condition of anonymity. He adds that one of the complaints was filed with Mysuru Deputy Commissioner Abhiram Sankar as well. “A complaint was registered on Sunday after a woman reported that she and a child were followed for more than a kilometer by a mob. She said that men in the mob troubled her. We showed the complaint to the deputy commissioner of Mysuru, following which a formal complaint was lodged. Immediate action was taken.”“We are doing our best. But my simple advice to everyone is to report any such incidents to the police; let the officer on the field know. It is already many days into the Dasara festivities and we haven’t received a single complaint. We want the victims to speak to us. When allegations are made online without them being reported to the police, the incidents cannot be confirmed, nor can we respond to them. We have to all follow the course of the law.”— A Subrahmanyeswara Rao, Mysuru police commissioner

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