We recently heard from Amrita Rao‘s team that the actress got a nasty shock some days ago while she was on her way to the airport to catch an early morning flight. Apparently, she was driving on a “secluded area of a long private road that connected to the main road” when she spotted a woman being assaulted. Amrita saw a rickshaw driver “holding a woman by her hair and banging her head to the ground mercilessly” and so jumped out of her car in order to yell at him. He apparently justified his actions by saying the lady was a thief. Amrita’s driver, we’re told, stepped out of the car to intervene as well, at which point three other men “came out of nowhere and started hovering around the car.” Realising that they would be overpowered, Amrita got back into her car and asked her driver to flee the location.
The note goes on to say that the actress realised she forgot her mobile phone at home, and so couldn’t call the police station. She apparently suggested to her driver that they should visit the police station, but he informed her that she would miss her flight if she did so. Realising that it would be “highly unprofessional to miss her flight and not land up at the event where all arrangements and bookings were already made,” Amrita decided it would be best to head straight to the airport. But her problems were far from over. According to her representatives, “her car broke down on the highway and then she had to call for an emergency help and somehow managed to get on the flight.”
‘Cause, you know, she had the means to call for emergency help to get to the airport, but not to call the police to stop the assault. Sigh.
I’m not even judging her for her actions (if it even happened this way), but I am judging the fact that there’s a press release about it. Especially one that seems to be inconsistent about the facts. I’m assuming they’re the ones that tipped off this Mid-Day report, and that one says that she did indeed go to the police station but there was no one there to register the complaint. Also, you know, the fact that she “forgot her cell phone” (which is just so convenient). Did her driver not have his phone either? If so, how did they “call for emergency help” when her car broke down? And why didn’t they report the assault when they did manage to contact emergency help for their own emergency?
This is what Amrita has to say on the matter:
“I haven’t slept well since the incident imagining what would have happened if the 4 men got together and attacked me and my driver. It was still dark and no one would have heard our screams. It is a HIGHLY unsafe city for women AND I also realised that day that a lot of injustice must be happening to the women of our country between 12 am-5 am. Although what I did was very dangerous, ideally I should have called the police and informed them the location and the rickshaw number so that they could take action. Getting involved was very dangerous and would have only worsened things, but I raised my voice against women getting beaten up and as a woman myself that is the only satisfaction that stays with me.”
I’m not sure how to react to this because I don’t know how much of it is accurate. It also bothers me that she’s losing sleep over what could have happened to her as opposed to the what really happened to the woman who was actually getting assaulted (and who she apparently forgot about just a few minutes later).
If this story is indeed accurate, then I suppose we appreciate that she at least stopped and tried to do something when many would just keep driving. But this strange attempt at publicity just doesn’t sit right with me.
What are your thoughts? Admirable heroism or shameless publicity?