16-year-old Central Mumbai college student molested by cabbie under black magic guise
A 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a cab driver in Mumbai, who lured her under false pretenses. The driver has been arrested
Mumbai: A 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a cab driver on Thursday afternoon while travelling to her college in Central Mumbai. The incident occurred when the girl hired a cab to reach her college.
The driver, identified as Jagannath Kale, 47, a resident of Koparkhairane in Navi Mumbai, allegedly lured the girl into the front seat by telling her that she was hexed by a black magician and that he could identify the spots on her body. He then touched her inappropriately while claiming to check for signs of the alleged spell.
After getting out of the taxi, the girl informed her parents, who then filed a complaint at the Kalachowki police station in Parel and arrested the accused taxi driver.
“When the victim sat in the cab, the driver started conversing with her. A few minutes later, he told her that she was a victim of black magic and asked her to sit beside him in the driver’s seat,” said the police officer. He then started touching her and checking for marks on her body.
“The teenager felt violated and asked the cab driver to stop the car. She immediately told her parents about the incident who then approached us,” said an officer.
The police booked the accused driver under sections 74 (assault or use of criminal force against a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty), 75 (sexual harassment) and 78 (stalking) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita and under sections 8 (punishment for sexual assault) and 12 (punishment for sexual harassment) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act.
“After filing the complaint, we started tracing the taxi driver and checked several CCTVs from where they had travelled. We got the number of the taxi driver and through RTO details got his address to arrest him,” said the officer.