Man flashed a woman in an ATM in Mumbai. the incident took place in the wee hours of morning, when the complainant stopped at an ATM in Mulund (East) on her way back home to withdraw money and pay her rickshaw driver.
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[00:00:00] I wonder if there is any woman out there reading this who has never been flashed. The first time it happened to me, I was in 3rd standard which would make me 8 years old
[00:00:12] when the driver in a parked car began masturbating knowing full well that a gaggle of schoolgirls could see him. Another time I was walking to the bus stop near Ames in Delhi when a man called out to me and there it was, waving in ugly fashion at me.
[00:00:29] The third time I was with my friends near my all women's college when a car pulled up and the man asked for direction that I began giving before I noticed, oops no bands. The fourth time, well you get the picture. Is flashing a male epidemic?
[00:00:47] I ask because I do not know a single woman who hasn't experienced the wholly unpleasant sight of a stranger's penis being waved at her. The first time she was flashed recalled novelist Kiran Mandral, she was barely 10 on a best bus on her way to school.
[00:01:04] They've got away with this for far too long. She said, me too said interior designer Soni Agarwal in Italy as a kid and as a young lady. It's damp and dead as well because we are grappling with far more heinous crimes
[00:01:19] of sexual violence gang rape, acid violence, stalking. We tend to dismiss flashing as a relatively harmless crime. As if it's minor nuisance akin to man spreading, the man who for instance hogs up the common
[00:01:33] armrest and something we must get used to and ignore as we navigate our way through male dominated public spaces whether that space is public transport or deserter road or sunlit park or a bus stop. And yet why should women have to accept this?
[00:01:49] There is of course a hierarchy of sorts where sexual violence and assault is concerned and I'm not implying that flashing brings with it same degree of violence as say a rape. Except flashing today and then learn to ignore groping tomorrow.
[00:02:05] Conceit that public space belongs to men and then learn to put up with sexual harassment at work. At what point do we actually say no more? It's too much. I have every right to be here to take up this public space and to be treated with dignity
[00:02:19] as long as I occupy it. I'm perplexed. What does a flasher hope to achieve? What is he expecting through a tangential contact? Clearly, the act is one of sexual aggression and clearly a woman who is flashed is violated
[00:02:34] but what do flashers think they will get out of this display, shock or just plain exhibitionism? What is remarkable about Sunday night's incident at a bank ATM in Mulund, Mumbai is that the woman who goes by the handle SHIBXNI was able to video the incident.
[00:02:54] In her Instagram feed she explains how she was returning home in an auto rickshaw at night and stopped to withdraw cash from the ATM near her house. The machine didn't seem to work which is when the flasher Sandeep Kumbhakar entered
[00:03:08] and asked if she needed help or wanted him to pay for her ride. She declined and went out to talk to the rickshaw driver to explain the situation. A cop car then pulled up to find out what was the problem.
[00:03:21] At this point, she went back to the ATM to try to withdraw cash again. The man returned, she rides and moves in closer and touches my shoulder and thigh again asking if I needed help. I instantly back off and he allowed him to stay away from me.
[00:03:36] One after he is calling out to me and blatantly asking me to look at his heart that he had pulled out of his denim zipper area. Incredibly this is happening with the man's likely knowledge that there is a cop car in the vicinity.
[00:03:51] Definitely he is aware that the rickshaw driver is waiting outside and unless he is completely brain dead, he knows that ATMs have security cameras. Somebody is going to say this, somewhere there is going to be a recording of his act. Does he not care?
[00:04:07] The impunity of this man is perhaps shared by his co-flashers. Do men who commit sexual violence ever weigh the consequences? This certainly is a man who has no fear of his actions bearing any consequence. Clearly, he hasn't bargained for the woman's presence in recording him.
[00:04:25] You can see his shock in the video posted by the woman on Twitter as he realizes she is filming and he quickly turns around, zips up and makes a hasty exit. But the story isn't over because the woman then runs to the cop car and shows them
[00:04:39] the video. They follow the flasher on his scooter. In the morning when she goes to the police station, Mumbai's finest inform her that Kumbhakar is already in custody where he is crying and pleading. I knew I had to take action against him.
[00:04:55] So along with my dad, I filed an FIR. The woman says she plans to follow up her case in court. Hardeningly, there is nearly unanimous support for the woman. None of the usual sympathy for the perpetrator's family.
[00:05:10] No moral sermonizing about adventurous women who return home late at night. On her Twitter feed, I can only see support for the woman. Proud to see women stand up to this everyday nonsense. Tweets architect Shilpi Tiwari. Hope this gets punished and registered as a sex offender for life.
[00:05:29] Rights actor and veer shawri. Could you could muster courage and record? Tweets are handled that goes by Chaukidar Gopal Krishnapai. I stand with you, says Jatin Kumar. By 9pm on May 12th, the tweet has received 466 comments, 2,400 retweets and 11,000 likes.
[00:05:51] Thank God for a new generation of women armed with their smartphones. Thank God for presence of mind. Thank God for evidence and thank God for a changed world, where such behavior is not acceptable.