Women activists slam Sidhartha Mallya for comments on Pomersbach incident

Women leaders and activists today criticised Sidhartha Mallya for his comments casting aspersions on the character of an American woman who alleged that a cricketer molested her.

His comments came following the arrest of Australian player Luke Pomersbach on a charge of molesting the woman and attacking her fiance.

Sidhartha, director of IPL team Royal Challengers, Bangalore set up by his father Vijay Mallya, accused her of talking nonsense and went on to say "she was all over me last night and asked for my BBM (blackberry messenger) pin".

Reacting to his tweets, women activist Ranjana Kumari said nobody has a right to sexually assault her.

"This kind of juvenile irresponsible behaviour will not be acceptable in the country whosoever the person may be. He must apologise to the women of the country," she said.

Whatever her profession or character or her background, Kumari said nobody is supposed to ask questions. "What he is doing by tweeting and behaving the way he is behaving, it is insulting woman.

"By insulting women, he becomes an accomplice of a criminal because sexual assault is a criminal act. If some player has done it who belongs to his team or his father's team, he is trying to protect the player by doing that he should also be arrested," she said.

She said Mallya is equally responsible for the same charge because he is the accomplice of a criminal who has sexually assaulted another woman.

Congress spokesperson Renuka Choudhury said, "It is the easiest thing you can do is to denigrate a woman. He is a young man. I will give him good advice as a mother that you have to learn to respect women whatever the character is."