The National Commission for Women on Tuesday issued notices to Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara and Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi for allegedly making sexist comments regarding the molestation of women by a mob here on New Year's Eve.

NCW Chief Lalitha Kumaramangalam said while notices were issued to Parameshwara and Azmi, a letter was sent to the Karnataka government on Monday to know about the action taken in the molestation case.

"We have asked the minister to explain his statement and tender a public apology, failing which we will take further action. We have given him five days to reply," Kumaramangalam told IANS.

A mob of drunken men groped women and heckled revellers on December 31 night on the MG Road and Brigade Road in the heart of Bengaluru.

On Tuesday, Azmi said: "It was bound to happen. Women call nudity a fashion. They were wearing short dresses."

Azmi is said to have commented that women were like "sugar" and men were like ants, and compared women with petrol. "If there is petrol, there will be fire. If there is sugar, ants will come," he reportedly commented.
 

Parameshwara is said to have blamed the "western ways" of the youngsters for the molestation. He said it was not uncommon for crowds of women to be molested in the city on Christmas and New Year's Eve.

The minister was also reported to have said that "these kinds of things do happen".

"They try to copy the West, not only in their mindset but even in their dressing. So some disturbance; some girls are harassed; these kind of things do happen," the minister said.