An Indian beauty queen was chased and attacked by a gang of men after filming an assault on her Uber driver in the city of Kolkata.
Former Miss India Universe Ushoshi Sengupta told how 15 boys dragged the cab driver out of his car on Tuesday night and beat him severely, after several of them on one motorbike collided with the vehicle as it was turning at a junction.
They then followed her and a colleague home, dragged her from the car and tried to break her mobile phone to destroy the video she had filmed of the earlier attack.
Former Miss India Universe Ushoshi Sengupta (pictured) suffered two assaults at the hands of the same youth biker gang in Kolkata on Tuesday night
The beauty queen turned media and film star revealed harrowing details of the attack in a Facebook post that also slammed police for incompetence and lack of interest.
She was travelling with a colleague following a late-night work appointment at the JW Marriott Kolkata hotel in the capital of India’s West Bengal state, her home city, when the first attack happened.
‘My Uber driver was beaten up and I stood up for him,’ she told NDTV.
‘When I started taking a video and asked them why they were not wearing their helmets, why two to three of them were on a bike, another guy came and tried to stop me from taking their video.’
One youth from the gang of bikers harangues the Uber cab driver after colliding with the car at a junction, then others join in the argument that ended with the driver being dragged out and beaten
Joint Commissioner of Kolkata Police, Crime, Praveen Tripathi, announced on Wednesday that seven of the assailants had been arrested the night before.
Mr Tripathi said the seven had been detained for ‘allegedly harassing the complainant, assaulting an Uber driver and vandalising the cab.’
He named the suspects as Sheik Rahit, Fardin Khan, Sk. Sabir Ali, Sk. Gani, Sk. Imran Ali, Sk. Wasim and Atif Khan
‘A detailed inquiry is going on into the case,’ Mr Tripathi said.
But Ms Sengupta painted a very different picture of the police response to the crime, saying they refused to aid the Uber driver until she broke down and begged them to save his life.
Six youths on three motorbikes threw stones to smash the windscreen of this Kolkata Uber cab carrying Indian beauty queen Ushoshi Sengupta before dragging her out and trying to break her mobile phone to delete video evidence of an earlier attack on Tuesday night
‘I ran across the street to Maidan Police station, I saw an officer standing and I requested him to come with me,’ She wrote
But ‘he told me that this is not under them but under the jurisdiction of Bhawanipore Police station.’
‘This is when I broke down I begged them to come or else the boys would have killed the driver,’ Ms Sengupta said.
‘The officers came and held the boys saying why are they creating nuisance. The boys pushed the police officers and ran away.’
After the first attack was over, Ms Sengupta asked the driver to take her home, as it was already midnight.
But she was astonished when the youths followed the car and launched a second, more vicious, attack as they were dropping her colleague off.
‘6 of the boys in 3 bikes came and stopped my car, threw stones , broke the car,’ she wrote.
‘Dragged me out and tried to break my phone to delete the video. My colleague jumped out out of fear and I was completely shaken.
‘I came out started shouting by now the locals had come out.’
After the second attack ended, Ms Sengupta and the driver went to the Chauru Market police station to report the crime – only to get another bureaucratic response from officers who told them they could only make their complaints at the Bhawanipore station.
‘At this point I gave up and started shouting,’ she wrote. Officers eventually took her statement – but refused to let the driver file a second complaint for the same crime.
Former Miss India Universe Ushoshi Sengupta, pictured here at the 2010 I AM SHE beauty pageant that she won, was assaulted twice by the same gang of biker youths on Tuesday night
Ms Sengupta said she was shocked by the brutal attack, and sympathised with other women and girls afraid to walk the streets of her home city.
‘Last night absolutely shook me, This is not the Kolkata I came back to, not the Kolkata I left flourishing career outside to come back and live, she wrote.
‘I stand up for every girl every citizen who is scared to live in this situation.’
‘That spot where the incident happened is the place that my sister, father and friends pass through. It could have happened to anybody,’ Ms Sengupta told NDTV.
‘I had to stand up stand up for the driver when he started getting beaten up.’