Samyuktha Hegde has withdrawn her complaint against the activist and entrepreneur Kavitha Reddy alleged of harassing and moral policing Hegde and her two friends for their clothes at a park near Bengaluru’s Agara Lake.
Three days back a video surfaced on the internet which highlighted the whole incident. She captured the horrific incident on their camera and narrated it as well stating, “I was practicing the hula hoops and my friends were doing their workout when an elderly lady walked up to us and began abusing us in the choicest of language. Are you cabaret dancers? What sort of clothes are you wearing? A@&&&@s! If you wear such clothes and something happens to you the next time, don’t come crying to anyone.”
After Kavitha, a group of men also joined her and assaulted her. Later a group of boys also joined them and started threatening Hegde to connect her name to the ongoing Sandalwood drug scandal.
Although Kavitha Reddy has apologized through a letter and a video, she had not taken down the posts yet which she had promised to do.
Samyuktha Hegde wrote to her Instagram wall clarifying her decision to withdraw the charges against Reddy, “Hi everyone. I really really appreciate all the support I’ve been getting, all the love, all the posts, all the trolls, all the tweets that gave this voice an amplifier. You all have played such a major role in making this a nationwide impact, this is a feather on the cap for all of us as a society and I hope that the horrible incident of Friday results in wider awareness about how moral policing cannot be tolerated in our lovely cosmopolitan city or anywhere else. Let’s be clear, Kavitha Reddy’s apology was not satisfactory or genuine, She had not taken down her posts or tweets for 16 hours after issuing a public apology which shows how casual she was about this apology and had clearly done this under pressure as it was affecting her public image and many of you have also pointed this out. However, I want the focus of this issue to not be on her or me or the incident, I hope this goes a small way in working on greater freedom for women every where around. I’ve consulted with my family and also keeping Kavitha Reddy’s age in mind, I am not interested and don’t want to pusure my case against her and I have formally requested the police yesterday about the same. However, I want to be clear: I still hope that strong action is taken against Anil Reddy and the others with him, who threatened and abused us at the park and made us feel so helpless. NOBODY IN THE WORLD HAS A RIGHT TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE THAT AND IT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED ANYMORE.”
The post also states, “Again I must express my love and gratitude for all the support from all of you, my legal team ( Arjun Rao and Maitreyi Bhat ), and specially want to mention 2 people who were there and available for me throughout all this. Shraddha for all the advice and mental support that you’ve given me and Pavan for just being there by my side. I love you and I couldn’t have done this without you guys.”
Hegde ended her message with the statement, “Lastly but most importantly I want to thank my family for strongly standing with me, emotionally supporting me and letting me know that no matter what, they are with me and as a girl I think that’s the most imporrant support.”
