Man who spit on woman, called her ‘coronavirus’ arrested

A 40-year-old man, who works at a pressure cooker manufacturing unit, was arrested Wednesday for spitting on a woman and calling her ‘coronavirus’ in North Delhi’s

A 40-year-old man, who works at a pressure cooker manufacturing unit, was arrested Wednesday for spitting on a woman and calling her ‘coronavirus’ in North Delhi’s Vijay Vihar on Sunday night, police said.

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The woman who faced the abuse hails from Manipur and many social media users had termed the attack on her racist after a Twitter user uploaded images of her spit-stained T-shirt and upper torso, with her face cropped out.

Police identified the arrested man as Gaurav Vohra, a resident of Gurh Mandi in Model Town. “He is employed at a pressure cooker manufacturing unit in Anand Parbat ,” a senior police officer said.

The police has earlier said that the incident has taken place on a dark stretch of road when the woman was walking past the man who was on a scooter. She was alone at the time of the incident and could not see the man’s face or the registration number of the scooter he was riding, the police had said.

On Wednesday, the police said CCTV footage helped them identify the scooter that Vohra was riding on when he allegedly committed the crime. “He had the same scooter with him when he was arrested,” the officer said.

The scooter has been seized, police said.

The incident, with overt tones of racism and sexual harassment, came to fore Sunday night after a Twitter user posted two pictures of the woman (her face was cropped out) with spit marks on her T-shirt and an accompanying post detailing the incident. The tweet, which was widely retweeted and shared on other social media platforms, drew sharp criticism from all quarters.

The outcry forced the police to register a case of insulting the modesty of a woman and deploy “dedicated teams” to identify the abuser.

The police are questioning the suspect to know if he had abused more people from the north-east states in this manner after the outbreak of the pandemic.