ATM assaulted woman critical, says doctor(ATM Assault/Update)

Doctors attending to a woman who was attacked with a machete by a burglar inside an unguarded ATM kiosk here, said on Wednesday that she is in a critical state and is suffering from paralysis on the right side of her body.

After attacking the woman and taking away the cash withdrawn by her, the man fled from the spot and left her in a pool of blood for hours.

Dr. N. K. Venkataramana, who was part of the team who operated on the victim, said she would require great emotional support along with regular physiotherapy sessions after her wounds heal.

"There is a facture of the skull and the bone of the skull is broken and part of it has got driven into the brain exactly in the area corresponding to the function of the hand and the leg on the right side. So, because of that, she developed a paralysis on the right side," said Dr.Venkataramana.

The recent incident has yet again posed a question on safety of women in the country, as the residents of Bangalore urged the government to step up security and ensure at least one guard inside the ATM booths.

"It was unfortunate that this incident has taken place we were earlier also told the bank high ups to deploy security persons in the ATM and I think this is the lapse of the bank people. You have seen it is an isolated place inside it has happened but we will take all the precautionary measures to prevent this type of crime to repeat," said Karnataka Home Minister K.J. George.

Women safety in India has been in the spotlight this year following the brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December last year, which led thousands of Indians to take to the streets in protest. The woman died of her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.

A law passed in March provides for stricter punishments on gender crimes. It punishes repeat rape offenders with death, criminalises voyeurism and stalking and makes acid attacks, gang rape and trafficking specific offences.

Women's rights groups have welcomed the measures but say they do not go far enough, terming them "token gestures" from a government that is still plagued, like much of Indian society, by patriarchal attitudes.