Kolkata:
In Kolkata, three incidents of molestation in two days, in full public view, have jolted the West Bengal capital dealing with a sudden spurt in crime against women.
The week had begun with the harrowing experience of a young woman who jumped off a train at Belur - seven kilometres from Kolkata - and took serious injuries to escape her molester.
A Mumbai-based TV anchor visiting Kolkata faced her worst nightmare on Monday night when she was harassed near the city's Howrah railway station, in front of a crowd that cheered her attacker instead of stopping him.
The molester was arrested and charged, but is now out on bail.
The 32-year-old woman was with her father and two friends and had stopped to pick up food when the attacker, Ratan Sau, leaned in through their car window and tried to drag the women out.
Both women came out and hit back at the man, but to their horror, a gathering crowd started egging him on. Encouraged, the attacker slapped the anchor's friend but the anchor hit him back with her shoe.
When the women tried to drive away, the crowd blocked their car and started banging on the windows. It was an agonizing 20 minutes before two policemen ended their ordeal. The molester was arrested and charged, but he walked free on bail on Tuesday.
In another incident on Tuesday, two students were arrested for harassing a woman travelling with her family on the Kolkata metro. The woman's father-in-law, who is also a metro official, stopped the two men from escaping and handed them over to the police.
Later, a woman who said her name was Soma Shah and claimed she was a Trinamool Chatra Parishad leader, asked the police to set the students free as one of them was her brother.
The third incident took place on Tuesday night, in a bus right outside the Writer's Building, the seat of the state government which houses the Chief Minister's office.
A man harassed two women, who were travelling with their children, on a minibus. The women struggled to get off the bus outside Writers Building. On hearing their cries for help, policemen on duty stopped the bus and caught the molester.