In an act of bravery, a group of karate-trained girls in the city thrashed five eve teasers and handed them over to the police recently.
"We have arrested five youth for eve-teasing. Some of their friends are at large. We are trying to nab them too," said Bhubaneswar Deputy Commissioner of Police Satyabrata Bhoi.
The girls, who attend the Utkal Karate School, were visiting various puja pandals (makeshift temples), when around 10 p.m. they came across of a group of boys at Baramunda Chhak, who allegedly hurled lewd comments at them.
Ignoring them, the girls moved to Nayapalli, but the eve teasers started stalking them. However, when the boys allegedly tried to molest two of them, the girls attacked them using certain karate moves. The accused tried to counter attack, but were overpowered by the girls' male colleagues.
Some of the accused fled the spot, but the girls managed to hold onto five of them and handed them over to the police.
The girls' karate coach, Hariprasad, said: "I have given a written complaint against the boys who misbehaved with some of my students. Eve-teasing is nowadays rampant in the city, and the girls should react to it violently."
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"Initially we ignored the boys. But when they started stalking us and misbehaving with us, we thrashed them to teach them a lesson and handed them over to the police," said one of the girls on condition of anonymity.
The incident came days after a student of the karate school, Chinmayee Bhuyan, thrashed three chain snatchers at the Market Building area.