12 people have been arrested by police for beating up a 22-year-old girl in Western Assam’s Goalpara district. The girl was assaulted by a group of men at Paikan on Monday when she was going with a male friend to a medical centre in Goalpara.
“This is a case of moral policing. What we have come to know is that the woman’s marriage has been fixed. She was going somewhere with her male friend yesterday, when some youths attacked them. The youths mainly targeted the woman,” Goalpara SP Amitava Sinha told reporters.
The girl was bashed up after she was spotted with her friend at Aolaguri area under Krishnai police station, he said.
“Police have registered an FIR in the case and nabbed six people yesterday and six more today,” Sinha said.
He said that the woman and her friend were apparently going to a medical centre when the beating incident took place.
The attackers sought an explanation from the woman for going out with another man, he said, adding that the victim and her assaulters belong to the Garo community.
A video of the assault has gone viral on the social media, in which the group of men were seen hitting the woman on her face, pulling her hair and kicking her.
“We are conducting further investigations to ascertain the involvement of more persons in the case,” Sinha said.