It won’t be wrong to say that the cases of sexual harassment are nothing new in our country as
yet again a case has come where a foreigner became the victim of the indecent act of the cab
driver. The case is concerned with a UK-based lawyer and her friend who were travelling from the Airport to a hotel in south
Delhi in a cab when the driver of the cab allegedly started masturbating in front of them. The driver who showed his unbecoming behaviour
originally belongs to Uttar Pradesh and had been employed as a cab driver in the city for the past
couple of months.
Delhi which is more notorious for indecent cases happening with foreigners, in this incident , victim was a London based lawyer
who was travelling with a companion when the incident occurred on Friday at Indira Gandhi International Airport. The plan was for the two to remain in Delhi and then travel to Rajasthan. The two used an app to arrange a taxi from the airport. The
driver is also accused of masturbating in front of the foreign visitors inside the cab as they traveled to
a five-star hotel in south Delhi, and when they protested, he allegedly threatened them.
Due to its pervasiveness, public masturbation has long been overlooked and sidelined by the law
and society, despite the high rate of perpetration it has in India. These kinds of offenses typically
occur frequently and have significant effects. The targeting of women is, like all sexual offenses,
motivated by power as much as pleasure. Public masturbation, as opposed to molestation and
assault, uses a form of power that isn’t physical to frighten the victim. In a way, acts of
aggression that don’t involve physical contact but have a lasting effect, such as catcalling and
public masturbating, might be categorized under this heading.
While under Indian penal law, no specific provision of punishment for this offense; certain provisions of the
Indian Penal Code (IPC) do come to the rescue of victims. Section 354 of IPC punishes the one
who uses criminal force or assaults a woman in a way that outrages her modesty with the
imprisonment of one to five years, section 509 provides for punishment if anything is done
(verbal or through acts) with an intention to insult the modesty of a woman, for up to three years
and section 268 which provides for public nuisance.
These laws are in place to protect the rights and safety of women but the perpetrator won’t be
punished if the victim won’t come forward against the acts of the perpetrator. So in case when
any woman goes through these kinds of incidents, she is supposed to file a First Information
Report (FIR) at a local police station providing the information relating to the offense. This
information should be given in writing to the head police officer of the station and it should be
signed by her. In case the FIR has been made in the police station in whose jurisdiction the
offense has not been committed, then the same would be registered and transferred to the police
station which has the jurisdiction.
If she feels wronged by the officer in charge of a police station’s refusal to file an FIR, she can
send a complaint to the Superintendent of Police or Deputy Commissioner of Police. If they are
convinced that the information provided reveals the commission of the crime, they will either
conduct their own investigation or order one to be conducted by a subordinate police officer.
