Gurugram: Two young women have alleged that they were harassed, intimidated and chased through the streets of Sector 70 in Gurugram by a man and a woman travelling in a black Scorpio, in an ordeal that began as an ordinary walk after dinner and ended with the women taking shelter in a paying guest accommodation in the early hours of the morning.
The incident, which the women have described in detail in a post on social media, took place on Tuesday night. One of the women, who posts on X as Sonica, wrote that she and her roommate left their paying guest accommodation at around 8:45 pm for a walk after dinner, strolled through a market, reached a well-known mall in Gurugram and sat there for some time to enjoy the weather. At around 10:10 pm, they decided to return to their accommodation.
It was on the walk back that, according to their account, a Scorpio stopped beside them.
The two women, aged 25 and 28 and working in the real estate sector, said the vehicle carried a woman in her mid-20s and a man in his mid-40s. The woman, who introduced herself as Manisha, first asked them the way to Vatika Chowk and then said she was looking for a luxury paying guest accommodation, with a monthly rent of Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000, and that money was not an issue. Her roommate began helping with directions.
The man, who introduced himself as Ashish, then began asking personal questions — about their hometowns, their jobs, their salaries and their rent.
The women said they wanted to leave calmly because the two occupants appeared to have been drinking and seemed drunk. As they were about to leave, the woman in the Scorpio allegedly began vomiting, and the man asked them not to leave her alone while he went to fetch water. Believing she needed help, they stayed.
The man, the women alleged, kept making unsolicited offers, claiming extensive business interests and links with politicians, and talking about getting them jobs and giving them money. He took out two Rs 500 notes and offered them as a Diwali gift, they said, and later forcibly put money in their pockets despite their refusal. He also asked for their phone numbers, ostensibly to help them find work.
What followed, according to the women's account, turned frightening. The man allegedly opened the rear door of the SUV and positioned himself in a way that made them feel cornered, repeatedly insisting that they accompany him for food and a party. To avoid provoking the occupants, the women agreed to walk to a momo shop about 100 metres away, where they continued to refuse food and the 25-year-old returned the Rs 500.
The man then allegedly turned aggressive and abused her in front of people at the shop.
The women then told the occupants that their paying guest accommodation would shut its gates, walked a short distance to make it look as though they were staying nearby, and then ran. The Scorpio, they alleged, followed them. They sought help in the kitchen of a cafe near Avenue 69, but the vehicle turned towards its rear entrance.
One woman ran into a paying guest accommodation while the other hid behind a parked car, unable to run as fast. Passersby and a scooter rider helped them reach a safer stretch, and they returned to their own accommodation at around 12:15 am.
One of the women said she was terrified throughout, and that she asked two or three men staying at the accommodation to help bring her roommate inside. The Scorpio, she alleged, remained parked outside the paying guest accommodation for at least 30 minutes. She also alleged that, since the woman in the Scorpio had their phone numbers, they later received a call and a message from unknown numbers.
She said she told a colleague, who is local to Gurugram, what had happened; he confronted the man about his behaviour, after which the man reportedly apologised and said he would not message her again.
"We came back terrified and couldn't sleep until 6 am," the woman wrote in her post, adding that she was still thinking about everything that happened and asking herself what might have been. The account has drawn wide attention online, with many readers expressing anger and concern about women's safety on Gurugram's roads at night.
The women also flagged what they see as a wider problem: inadequate street lighting on the stretch where they encountered the SUV. In her post, the 25-year-old urged authorities to improve lighting and step up night patrolling, pointing to a poorly lit turn towards Tulip Chowk in Sector 70 where the encounter began. The episode, she suggested, was not only about two individuals in a car, but about an environment in which women walking home at night feel exposed.
The Gurugram Police responded to the post on social media, asking the woman to share her contact number so that necessary action could be initiated. A senior police officer said action would be taken based on the facts once a complaint was received. According to reports, no formal complaint had been lodged as of the time of reporting, and police said that if a complaint is received, action shall be taken against the accused based on the findings of the investigation.
The women said they did not approach the police immediately because they feared the man might be influential locally and were unsure whether they would be taken seriously. They later shared their experience on social media instead.
That hesitation — between fear of influence and hope of being heard — is a familiar one in accounts of street harassment, and it is part of why the post has resonated: it describes not only what happened on one stretch of road, but the calculation women say they make before reporting it.
It is important to be precise about the status of these claims. They are allegations made by the two women, reported in their own words on social media and to news outlets. The occupants of the Scorpio have not been formally charged, and no police investigation findings have yet been made public. The account rests on the women's testimony, on the response of the police on social media, and on the help the women say they received from bystanders — not on a concluded inquiry.
Even with that caveat, the episode has reopened a conversation about safety in Gurugram's newer sectors, where rapid construction, new housing and commercial complexes have grown faster than street lighting and regular night patrols in some stretches. Residents and workers in Sector 70 and nearby areas have previously raised concerns about dark stretches and the absence of visible policing late at night.
The women's call for better lighting and patrolling echoes those concerns and puts a human story behind them.
For now, the next step lies with the police and with whether a formal complaint is filed. If it is, investigators will be able to examine CCTV footage from the mall, the market and the Sector 70 stretch, speak to the bystanders and shop staff the women mentioned, and trace the vehicle.
Until then, the women's account stands as a public warning to others walking the same roads after dark — and as a test of how quickly the city's safety machinery responds when a complaint finally reaches it.
(Reporting based on NDTV and The Times of India.)