Puja revelry ends in assaults - Woman attacked over noise protest

TT, Feb. 4: A 32-year-old woman was pushed and shoved outside her home in Kasba for protesting the noise from a loudspeaker at a Saraswati Puja pandal last evening, she said in her police complaint.

Her plight doubled when calls to the police helpline (100) wasn't of much help. After multiple calls, an officer from Kasba police station asked her to visit the police station to file a complaint, the woman, a computer engineer by profession, said.

"I requested for a police escort. A cop on a bike came and escorted the rickshaw I was in to the police station," she said.

Later at night, a 16-year-old boy was picked up based on her complaint. The boy will be produced before the juvenile justice board tomorrow.

The neighbours who were playing the loudspeaker (the puja was on Wednesday) filed a counter complaint. "She broke the boy's phone and it led to an argument," one of them said.

"They had attached the loudspeaker with a mobile phone and were playing film songs very loudly," she said. "Around 8pm, I requested them to stop or reduce the volume. They doubled it instead."

The woman said she went back to confront the group. "They started hurling abuses. I couldn't tolerate it and I took away the phone. A mob surrounded me, demanding I return the phone. I got scared and I threw the phone in their direction. It fell on the ground and broke. A youth, who said it was his phone, attacked me. I was pushed to the ground."

She said in her complaint that the neighbours pelted her house with stones. It was then she tried to call the cops.

This evening, she visited the police station again to report that some of the neighbours had hurled abuses at her in the afternoon.