Two sisters who say they were being harassed by a group of men on a bus in India have been filmed beating their attackers with a belt and their fists before they were thrown off the bus while it was still moving.
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The father of the girls, Aarti and Pooja, said police were now pressuring them not to pursue the case, according to The Times of India.
The attack took place in Rohtak, about 70 kilometres north-west of New Delhi.
The sisters claimed that, when they got on the Haryana Roadways bus on their way to college on Friday, a male began teasing them and throwing pieces of paper containing his phone number at them.
He was also blowing kisses towards them and making lewd gestures, the sisters claimed.
When they objected to his behaviour, one of the group of males started "beating them up", the Hindustan Times reported
"They threatened us and abused us," one of the sisters, who was not named, told the newspaper.
"One of them touched my sister inappropriately. They started making obscene gestures ...
"After heated exchanges, one of the boys called his friends, asking him to beat us up. One of them beat my sister while two others caught hold of me.
"Then, I whipped out my belt and thrashed them. They pushed us out of the bus when it slowed down."
The sisters claimed passengers on the bus did nothing to help them.
They said that, in fact, one passenger warned the sisters to leave the men alone or they would "rape or pour acid" over them, according to reports.
"We fought the assaulters all alone. No one came forward to help us as the youth hit us and even pushed us out of the moving bus," one sister said.
One of the passengers on the bus recorded part of the confrontation on her mobile phone, and the footage has since been shared widely on social media.
The girls' father, Rajesh Kumar, told The Times of India that his daughters reported the incident to police, but police were urging them to "strike a compromise on the issue and not to pursue the matter".
The girls alleged that, when the male who attacked them was taken to the police station, a police officer told them that nothing would be achieved by filing a complaint against him.
Police said the incident was being investigated.
India introduced tougher rape laws last year for crimes against women after the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a bus in New Delhi in December 2012.
The attack sparked national outrage over the treatment of women.
A judge sentenced four men to death over the attack after finding them guilty of murder, rape and kidnapping.
In June, Indian minister Babulal Gaur sparked outrage when he said rape was "sometimes right, sometimes wrong".
Fairfax Media
