Police personnel addresses a press conference after the arrest of three people accused in the Spanish tourist gang-rape case, in Dumka district of Jharkhand, Sunday, March 3, 2024.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: National Commission for Women (NCW) chief Rekha Sharma once again waded into controversy after she accused an American journalist of “defaming” the country after he shared instances of sexual harassment of tourists in India.
David Josef Volodzko was sharing his experiences in India after retweeting a Spanish vlogger's account of being gang-raped in Jharkhand while travelling with her husband.
Volodzko, in a long post on X, said that the level of sexual aggression he had witnessed in India was “unlike anywhere else” he had ever been.
“Once a total stranger, a British woman, asked to sleep in my bed and pretend to be my girlfriend on a train ride because a man walking by in the hall had licked her foot and she felt unsafe,” he shared.
The US-based man also shared another instance where an Indian man groped a white woman in front of him. “I never met a female traveler who had not been groped or assaulted or worse, even if they had only been in country for mere days. I love India. It is and always will be one of my favorite places in the world. But I have advised female friends who asked me not to travel there alone,” the man further posted.
Sharma, in response to the post, accused Volodzko of making it up since he did not report it to the police. “Did you ever report the incident to police? If not then you are totally an irresponsible person. Writing only on social media and defaming whole country is not good choice (sic),” she posted.
Several users accused Sharma of “victim blaming” and demanded that she resign from the position. This is not the first instance where Sharma has been accused of being insensitive.
A woman blogger, a Spanish national, while out in Jharkhand’s Dumka, was on Friday gangraped by seven men. She was travelling across South Asia, and after travelling through Pakistan and Bangladesh, she was making her way to Nepal with her husband, a Brazilian.