Bengaluru horror: 16-year-old boy held for filming women in cinema hall washroom; 6 videos recovered

BENGALURU: A 16-year-old boy was detained by Madiwala police on Sunday night for allegedly filming women inside a Bengaluru cinema hall washroom.

The incident occurred around 8.45pm at Sandhya Theatre, near Silk Board junction, BTM Layout, south Bengaluru, during the screening of the 2001 Telugu film Nuvvu Naaku Nachchav. During the interval, a woman noticed a mobile phone placed atop an open toilet cubicle and realised she was being recorded. She raised an alarm and alerted the theatre management.


Her husband and the other audience members at the theatre caught the boy hiding in a cubicle and seized his phone before he could delete the clips. Police were called via the ‘Namma 112' helpline around 9.30pm. Hoysala personnel reached the spot and rescued the juvenile from an angry crowd of over 300 people. Another suspect was also taken in for questioning.

Investigators found the boy had arrived in Bengaluru from Nepal two weeks ago with his parents. His cousin, a housekeeping staffer at the theatre, had brought him along to assist with cleaning. South-East Cyber Crime police station inspector Eshwari PN and her team recovered videos of at least six women from his phone. The boy confessed he entered a cubicle before the interval, climbed onto the commode, and filmed women in adjacent stalls.

A case was registered under Section 77 (voyeurism) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the relevant provisions of the IT Act. The phone will be sent for forensic analysis. The boy will be produced before the Juvenile Justice Board. n. Police are also questioning the boy's cousin, Kamal, and theatre staff members Thimmaraju and Nagaraju to ascertain how the boy was allowed to work at the theatre without being directly recruited, as they claim. Labour department has been alerted for action against the theatre management, a senior officer said.