24-year-old threatened with iron rod, raped in Mumbai; one arrested

The case comes weeks after a 32-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and brutalised with an unidentified object in Maharashtra’s Sakinaka area on September 9. She later succumbed to her injuries.

A 24-year-old daily wage labourer has been arrested on charges of raping a 20-year-old woman after threatening to brutalise her with an iron rod, police said on Sunday.

The accused is an acquaintance of the survivor and lives in her neighbourhood

The case comes weeks after a 32-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and brutalised with an unidentified object in Maharashtra’s Sakinaka area on September 9. She later succumbed to her injuries.

According to the complaint lodged by the survivor, the incident took place in the wee hours of Saturday, when the accused stopped the victim and her friend in an alley while they were returning home after a visit to the Marine Drive. The accused is an acquaintance of the survivor and lives in her neighbourhood, it added.

The survivor has alleged that the accused was holding an iron rod at the time of the incident and threatened to brutalise her. “The survivor’s friend panicked and fled the spot, following which the accused raped her in an isolated lane,” said the police.

“Two special teams, formed to probe the case, have arrested the accused and produced him before a local court,” said an officer from Chembur police station.

Senior police inspector of Chembur police station, Jaikumar Suryavanshi, said: “The accused has been booked under Section 376 (punishment for rape), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.”

He added that the police will also scan the CCTV footage from the scene of the crime and record the statement of the friend accompanying the woman.