Mumbai: Maharashtra too had its terrible taste of moral policing in the name of culture and heritage on New Year’s Eve when trekkers headed to a Lonavla fort were beaten up, harassed and traumatised while tourists to Raigad fort were waylaid by stick-wielding women to check if they were carrying liquor.
Lonavla rural police have so far arrested 13 people, including three women, for physically assaulting six trekkers at Visapur fort, about 115 km from Mumbai, with one woman, Shalini Pallav Jhala, a fitness trainer, also being attacked when she intervened as the mob set upon her husband. Jhala suffered a hand fracture after the attackers, claiming to be protectors of the fort, beat her up.
The group of 26 trekkers had registered themselves for the camp through a website Life Away from Life and had gone to Visapur fort, where they had camped outside the fort. There were other groups scattered in the vicinity. At around 9.30, when they were sitting around the camp fire, a group of 10 to 15 men and women came and accused them of littering the place and violating the sanctity of the place.
Jhala said the men were asked to strip and thrashed with sticks and belts while the women in the group were subjected to verbal abuse. Jhala, who was roughed up and thrashed, said the intruders even “called our families and told them that we were indulging in obscene acts by consuming liquor. They even called up my father-in-law. It was humiliation for us and our parents.” She said that when she intervened when her husband was targeted, the women in the bullying group asked her why she was not wearing a ‘bindi’ or ‘mangalsutra,’ symbols of marriage, like them.
Camp organiser and certified mountaineer, Prateek Deo, was not available for comment but his brother Vishwas Gupta, a professor at DY Patil College, told Gulf News that “Prateek has been beaten up so badly and traumatised by the incident that he is petrified to talk to anyone. For someone who has covered 100 forts and is doing a documentary on forts in Maharashtra, I think it is terribly unfortunate that this incident has distressed him and others.”
Gupta said all the camps organised by Deo clearly tell that alcohol and smoking is not allowed and, therefore, there was no question of anyone drinking as the intruding group had alleged.
The nightmarish attacks continued and it was only after some of the concerned parents called up the police from Mumbai and Pune that local police came over. It was around 2.30am when the trekkers were brought to a police station where they were subjected to tests to ascertain they were sober. Some of the parents were reluctant to file a First Information Report (FIR), or complaint, at the police station, but a day later Jhala called up a senior police officer after which a FIR was filed.
Meanwhile, Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, stopped tourists on their way to Raigad fort on New Year’s Eve to check vehicles for liquor. According to them, tourists visiting the fort often get drunk thus violating the sanctity of the fort, which dates back to the era of Shivaji, a revered 17th century Maratha ruler.
