New Delhi (Sputnik) — A day after an Instagram post by a Delhi University student went viral, in which she claimed that she was hit by semen filled balloons in the run-up to the Holi festival due on Friday, the student community of the Indian capital hit the streets in protest. The protests also swept across Twitter, where netizens vented their anger against #HoliHooliganism.
Holi, the festival of colors, is celebrated across India as part of the extended festivities of the arrival of spring. People revel in each other's company by exchanging delicacies and smearing faces with powdered colors. However, there is no shortage of boys and men who indulge in eve-teasing and harassment of girls in the garb of celebrating Holi.
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Shortly after the victim, a student of Lady Sri Ram College, posted her ordeal on Instagram, the post was shared by hundreds of thousands of people who demanded swift action against the perpetrators.
The Instagram post by the victim read, "I went out with a friend for lunch yesterday to a cafe in the Amar Colony market. It was about five in the evening when we decided to head back. Not a minute of our short Metro ride had passed when there came flying my way a liquid filled balloon of sorts, hitting me square in the hip, where it burst open, its contents seeping into my kurti and leggings. It dried white on my black leggings, and the foreign smell clearly indicated that it wasn't water."
"The student community is enraged and we are demanding that not just the responsible be punished in this incident but anyone who tries to convey the message that Holi is a festival gives liberty to abuse and molest people need to be exposed," Saransh Nair, a volunteer of the "Pinjara Tod Movement" told Sputnik.