Young India vents anger over Mangalore incident on internet
By IANSMonday, January 26, 2009
NEW DELHI - Young Indians angry about the attack on women in a pub in Karnataka’s Mangalore town are giving vent to their ire on the internet with critical comments on blogs and furious responses to the video of the incident on YouTube.
‘On a day when India celebrated its 60th Republic Day, the news (of the Mangalore pub incident) that made the headlines was shocking, awful and shameful to hear as an Indian,’ said a comment on a blog.
‘I am stunned to see that in a democratic nation, where every individual has the right to live the way he or she wants, such incidents happen,’ the blogger added.
On Saturday, a group of 40 activists of the Sri Rama Sena barged into the pub Amnesia - The Lounge in Mangalore. They bashed up a group of young women and men, claiming the women were ‘violating traditional Indian values’. The girls were punched and their hair pulled by the self-styled moral brigade.
The video of the incident, which was uploaded on the popular video sharing website YouTube, has become one of the most watched clips on the internet.
Of the scores of comments posted in response to the video is that of a 22-year-old user Chaitu100 who asked: ‘Spoiling Indian culture?! So is this Indian culture - beating up women?’
Bangalorebeats, a blogger, wrote: ‘Now who gives them (the activists) the right to moral police others? Hindu religion professes respect to women and not to harass them. If one carefully reads the Veda or ancient scriptures then one can understand that women had much liberty in ancient India’.
Aarti Sharma, a Kolkata based BPO employee, said: ‘What makes them men enough to raise their hand on women? This is absolute violation of a person’s right, a crime on the pretext of tradition. Do they even know what tradition means?’
‘No one has a right to take law into their hands. Is beating girls not a violation of our tradition? The culprits should not be allowed to get away lightly after what they have dared to do,’ said Rahul, a Delhi based software engineer.
