The Tangshan attack took place almost a month ago, but its echoes have not died down. Four women out dining late at night were attacked after one of them resisted the physical advances made by a stranger. Enraged, the man slapped her, and as she and her friends fought him off, his friends joined in the attack. The video of the vicious attack went viral, creating nationwide outrage.

For Indians, the videobrought a sense of déjà vu.Like in India, in Tangshan too, the attack didn’t see anyone intervening except two women who were stopped from doing so by their male partners. The rest of the diners either hurried out or carried on with their meals. Like in India, the police were nowhere to beseen, they landed up half an hour after receiving a call, by which time the assailants had fled. Finally, here too, some netizens blamed the women for being out so late — the attack took place between 2 and 3 am.

However, there the similarity ends. Within the next 48 hours, police had arrested nine persons, including two women accomplices. Five of the men had criminal records. One of them had evaded arrest for three years after the first complaint of assault was filed against him; another had violated court orders; some were involved in gambling and drug peddling. As netizens started asking how come these criminals were out of jail, the authorities reacted swiftly. The investigation was transferred out of the city, the police officer handling the case was dismissed, and a two-week campaign against gangs was launched, with citizens being asked to dial in or present their complaints in person. People started queuing up to complain at 7 am. The authorities had to set up additional helplines when the first didn’t work.

Some residents posted videos detailing the torture they had suffered at the hands of gangs: a bar singer revealed how she and five colleagues had been beaten and forced to sign IOUs by a gang close to the bar owner; a confectioner spoke of a gang having destroyed his shop after here fused to submit to their extortion. Both complained of police inaction.

However, along with the swift action, the authorities have also been equally prompt in stifling any opinion that goes beyond the obvious interpretation of the incident as an example of the gang-police nexus. Those describing it as not just gang violence but specifically, violence against women, found their posts deleted. China’s Twitter equivalent, Weibo, issued a statement saying it had suspended265 accounts for“maliciously publishing extreme content aimed at stirring up hatred and gender or regional conflicts”.

Online debates about why nobody intervened (except for two women) found an interesting response from a 29-year-old diner present during the attack. Even if all the young persons present there had jointly intervened, he wrote, they wouldn’t have stood a chance against “a group of thugs”.Another recounted the number of times Good Samaritans had ended up themselves charged with assault.

Tangshan is known as the ‘cradle of modern Chinese industry’.Rebuilt from the ruins of a devastating earthquake in 1976, it is China’s largest producer of steel, and also the country’s sixth most polluted city. For some reason, it received the tag of ‘civilised city’ four times since 2011; the honour was withdrawn after the incident. Just two and-a-half-hours’ drive from Beijing, today Tangshan has also become out of bounds for reporters, who find themselves forbidden from leaving the train station under the pretext of Covid regulations. The fate of the four victims, two of them in hospital with head injuries, remains unknown.