LAHORE: In a brash act of what appears to be exhibitionism, a young man stripped himself in front of a woman outside her home in Gulshan-i-Ravi area and fled the scene.
The despicable act by the man, who had apparently been stalking the woman on a bike, was recorded by a closed-circuit TV (CCTV) camera. But, because of the poor quality of the CCTV equipment installed in the street near the woman’s Tauhid Park house, neither the offender could be recognised, nor the registration number of his bike was visible in the footage obtained by police.
However, the footage shows the man approaching the woman, after parking his bike, and getting half-naked in front of her.
Shocked by the sick gesture, the woman rushed inside the house, returning with her husband after a short while, but by the time the offender fled the scene, the footage showed.
Her husband later gathered the locals and informed them about the ugly incident.
The area residents called the police which confirmed the incident after obtaining the footage that was of little use because of its poor quality. The police, however, registered a case against the unknown man on the complaint of the woman’s husband, Salahuddin Butt.
In the FIR, the complainant said his wife was returning home after dropping her children at the school when the incident occurred.
He said she was in a shock and was unable to describe what she went through in the street.
The footage later went viral on the social media which reminded the recent case of harassment of a woman at the Greater Iqbal Park by over 400 people.
The area residents condemned the incident, demanding early arrest of the offender and amendment to the existing laws to apply non-bailable sections in the cases of sexual harassment.
A senior lawyer, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, regretted that the laws covering acts of sexual harassment generally did not prescribe any strict punishment for teasing of women etc.
The police said they were trying to get footage of other CCTV cameras installed in the area to trace the bike and the culprit.
Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2021