It’s not everyday that you have the satisfaction of seeing an act of stalking and harassment getting identified and punished, in one swift swoop. But that’s how it seems to have played out when a young Korean traveller was harassed by lumpen elements, even as she live-streamed the experience.

She was approached, man-handled and harassed by two young men, as she returned to her hotel at night in Mumbai, reputed to be relatively safe for women.

The story, however, took a welcome turn as she recounted, that another young man, watching the online feed, came to her rescue and got rid of the rogue elements. Meanwhile, another person looped in Mumbai Police online, alerting them to the incident. And they in turn identified and picked up the two rogues.

The Korean lady was later seen expressing her appreciation of the city, its police and the country — following the swift action.

But the incident underscores the need for more safety patrols (or SOS numbers that can be called to alert the nearest police/security patrol), help-points, etc., to be accessible to anyone in distress — women, men, residents or tourists.

While building smart cities, administrators should ensure they are safe too — especially as people work erratic hours or travel long and often lonely distances to get to destinations.

When pizzas and car-rides can reach customers in minutes, maybe city administrations should work with young entrepreneurs to device a method to get a small team of reliable security personnel to someone in distress, in quick time. Several developed countries already have single emergency response number that work efficiently.

The brazenness of the recent incident was captured on camera, some people acted quickly and helped prevent it from taking an ugly turn. Law enforcement should combine technology (street cameras etc) and the community (welfare associations, tea-sellers and so on) in keeping the streets safe — while remaining close at hand, in case of trouble.

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