India skipper Virat Kohli has come in support of women, who were groped and verbally abused in Bengaluru on New Year’s Eve.
The 28-year-old Kohli took to micro-blogging site Twitter to show his support while raising some pertinent questions in his video before calling it “shocking and disturbing”.
“This country should be safe & equal for all. Women shouldn’t be treated differently. Let’s stand together & put an end to such pathetic acts. Change your thinking and the world will change around you,” Kohli tweeted.
In the video, Kohli – who said he feels embarrassed to be the part of such society – stressed on the protection of women.
“Guys what happened in Bangalore is really disturbing. To see something like that happen to those girls and for people to watch it and not doing anything about it. Those people have no right to call themselves men. I have only one question if something like that happen God forbid to someone in your family would you stand and watch or would you help that’s my only question,” Kohli said in a Twitter video.
The three-minute CCTV footage has caused nation-wide outrage when Times of India published the footage after the incident took place in an alley of east Bengaluru at around 2:30 am on January 1.
“And I think these things are allowed to happen and people stand there and they watch these things happen and they are fine with it, because they think it’s absolutely fine for something like that happen to a girl just because she is wearing short clothes,” Kohli said.
In the video, two motorcycle-borne men were seen molesting a woman after several men groped women and assaulted them during the celebration at MG Road and Brigade Road in Bengaluru. Reports had also suggested women had to take off their heels when police barely intervened in the matter.
“It’s her life, it’s her decision and it’s her choice. For men to accept that it’s an opportunity for us do to something like this and get away with this. And people in power trying to defend it is absolutely horrible. The fact that these things are in certain people’s heads acceptable to a certain degree it’s disturbing and equally shocking,” Kohli added.
According to news reports, around 1500 policemen were deployed in the area on New Year’s celebration to provide security.
“I’m ashamed to be a part of that society. I think we need to change our thinking; we need to treat men and women in the same way. Be respectful and treat women with some compassion. And as I said put yourself in that situation and think what if we were the family members of those girls. How we would feel about it? Jai Hind,” Kohli concluded.
Here’s the video:
Change your thinking and the world will change around you. pic.twitter.com/FinDIYv2aV
— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) January 6, 2017