The Bhutanese Leading the way.
At around 10.45 pm on Wednesday 13th February, two women working with the Swiss company in IT Park were attacked by three aggressive youths who they described were heavily intoxicated either with alcohol or drugs.
The incident took place when Dechen and her colleague, Pema (names changed upon request) left the office at around 10.45 pm to head home. Just as the car was to exit the main gate of the office premise, Dechen, who was driving the car, spotted a boy in the middle of the road and hit the brakes in time to avoid any accident. Dechen stopped her car and apologized to the boy who was faltering in the middle of the road.
“The youth then started walking towards the other side of the road, picked some stones, and started hitting on us. After I realized that the boy was either under the influence of alcohol or drugs, I hastily drove the car and heard the boy call out for his friends who were just few distances down the road. The three boys then came running after us and started pelting stones at our car,” said Dechen.
The three youths, Dechen said ran so fast they almost caught up with the car and Pema, who was sitting at the back, was injured when a sizeable stone broke the glasses and the stone hit her thighs. The medical examination showed that although Pema escaped major bone fracture, she’s going through painful thigh strain and had been asked to take proper rest.
The two women then called the police toll free number and waited for police to arrive at the scene, which Dechen said took quite some time.
Later, the police inspected the scene and sent a search team to track down the boys based on their description of clothing but they are still at large given that both Dechen and Pema weren’t able to clearly see their faces in the dark.
“We always work late hours but I haven’t heard of such incidents in the past. We would be grateful if the Thromde could install streetlights as there are many employees who walk home in the dark to make it more safer and prevent similar incidents from happening to anyone,” said Dechen.
“The area has no street light although there are a lot of houses and people living round. Also, there are no police patrolling in this area. I wish Thromde takes such matter seriously and installs streetlights. Police also needs to start patrolling around the area so that females, or for that matter, every employee working in IT Park can feel safe,” said an employee working at IT Park.
The women said that the incident was mentally traumatizing and they have been working from home to help them get over the incident.
The RBP patrolling-in charge said that since the women cannot provide any concrete description of the youths apart from the color of their clothing, it is challenging to arrest them.
The RBP personnel said that patrolling is already being carried out in that part of the area but becomes challenging given the limited resources to cover up vast areas by just five personnel.
