The Japanese woman who was harassed and groped in Delhi’s Paharganj area on Holi on Saturday took to Twitter to narrate the incident, the video of which has taken social media by storm. In a series of tweets, the woman reiterated her love for India but said she was “terrified” by the incident. The woman said she was in Bangladesh now.
She started a long thread of tweets in Japanese, starting with expressing her love for India, where she has travelled many times. “It's a wonderful country that you can't hate even if you receive this kind of treatment. India and Japan will forever be friends,” she wrote.
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She went on to apologise for causing concern and anxiety to people because of her video that went viral, adding that her goal was to convey the positive aspects and joys of India.
“The original Holi festival is a wonderful and fun traditional festival with the purpose of celebrating the arrival of spring by pouring coloured powder and water on each other and enjoying it,” she tweeted.
She said that the video was captured “by accident” while they were trying to film the festival.
The woman said that the place where the video was filmed -- the national capital -- is “considered one of the most unsafe places in India”, but she still participated in the festival. “I had heard that it was very dangerous for a woman to go out alone during the daytime at the Holi festival… so I participated in the event with a total of 35 friends. Unfortunately, this kind of situation happened,” she wrote, adding that there were people behind the camera helping her in the situation.
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On tweeting the video, she said she started getting more responses than she had imagined and was “terrified”. “So I deleted the tweet.”
“In the wake of this incident, the police have promised to strengthen their crackdown, and we hope that harassment against women will decrease significantly at the Holi festival from next year,” she said.
The video, which enraged people across the country, showed a group of men smearing colour on the foreigner, who seemed uncomfortable around them. It also showed one of the men smashing an egg on her head.
The video triggered strong reactions, including from Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Chairperson Swati Maliwal who said she was issuing a notice to Delhi Police to examine the video and arrest the perpetrators.
Earlier today, Delhi Police arrested three boys, including a juvenile, for groping and harassing the woman. According to the police, the accused confessed to the incident.
