‘You thought I’d be scared?’ Brave Mangaluru woman writes Facebook post to the guy who harassed her

‘You thought I’d be scared?’ Brave Mangaluru woman writes Facebook post to the guy who harassed her

“I could’ve let it go because he didn’t touch me or anything. But I didn’t want to, because the past years of my life have been infested with these experiences,” said Rashmi Shetty, who is pursuing MA in Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions in Bihar.

Almost every woman in India has gone through at least one harrowing experience of dealing with a lurking harasser. Many have been followed, stalked, groped, catcalled and a lot of them have raised an alarm, hoping this does not happen to another woman or there is not ‘next time’ to this episode, yet not a day passes by without a new incident of sexual harassment against women cropping up.

Rashmi Shetty, a 22-year-old woman from Mangaluru, was also leered at, and as she told indianexpress.com, this was not the first time. But this time around she chose to not give the perpetrator the satisfaction of having scared her and chose to retaliate. Shetty wrote a scathing Facebook post, divulging the number plate of the guy’s scooter, which has since then gone viral.

“I could’ve let it go because he didn’t touch me or anything. But I didn’t want to, because the past years of my life have been infested with these experiences,” said Shetty, who is pursuing MA in Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religions in Bihar. “He has probably been reinforced in the past to have this kind of guts. So this time I decided to expose on such man on social media because I wanted to find out about him and teach him a lesson,” she said on being asked what prompted her to share her experience on social media.

After she posted the photo of his number plate on Facebook, one of her friends on Facebook, got hold of the registration details of the vehicle, including the name of the owner, which she shared on her post thereafter.

Read the Facebook post here.

KA 19 EU 0932
You thought I’d be scared, didn’t you? You thought I’d be ashamed, didn’t you?
I was followed by the guy who this scooter belongs to today in broad daylight. In a busy street in Mangalore. 3pm in the noon in the center of the city, from Aloysius degree college to Balmatta, to a guy dares to follow a woman who’s walking while there is a swarm of cops thirty steps behind.
You think you can halt a million times ahead of me and honk at me while I cross you as you take a good ****ing look at my butt? And that would embarrass me enough to cry at my fate of being a woman in this country, this generation, this world? You think I’d freak out and run so fast that I ****ing run into your arms? You think you stopping and making phone calls to your gang would would threaten me into never getting out alone? So confident that if I asked for help if never be able to prove your fault? And that people wouldn’t take my side or take me seriously?
Well, guess what? I take my side. These streets are as much mine as they are of undeserving ****oles like you. You or a hundred like you will not scare me into staying home and not being free. This is a message from all the strong girls to you and your likes: if you try curtailing our freedom, we will fight back. And we will knock you down. I was only waiting for you to make a move so I can smack your face with my heels- the same ones you were trying so hard to catch up with. And you think you can do anything under the veil of anonymity? Here, I’m not anonymous anymore. And I won’t let you be either. And let me repeat, I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU.
I hope this reaches you somehow.
You thought I’d be scared, didn’t you? You thought I’d be ashamed, didn’t you?
You’re the one who should be both.
And yeah, **** YOU.

Many of Shetty’s friends and other Facebook users have come forward and commended her for speaking out, hoping that the perpetrator is identified and caught soon.

News Source: The Indian Express