Man seen groping woman on Bengaluru CCTV footage was 29-yr-old cab driver, held
Deputy commissioner of police (South-East) Sarah Fathima said five teams were formed to nab the culprit, who was found in a hideout near Kozhikode in Kerala
BENGALURU: A 29-year-old cab driver accused of stalking two women and groping one of them in Bengaluru’s BTM Layout on April 3 has been arrested from Kozikhode in Kerala, police said on Monday
The driver has been identified as Santosh D, a resident of Gulbarga Colony in Bengaluru’s Tilaknagar. “Five teams were formed to nab the culprit, who was found in a hideout near Kozhikode in Kerala,” Deputy commissioner of police (South-East) Sarah Fathima said.
She said the police analysed footage from nearly 700 CCTV cameras in different areas including Madiwala, Mico Layout, and Tilak Nagar before investigators were able to identify the culprit and track him down.
Police said the incident occurred in the early hours of April 3, when two women walking through a narrow alley were approached by Santosh.
CCTV footage, timestamped 1:52 am, shows the man cornering one of the women and groping her before fleeing the scene. The footage, which went viral, shows the women visibly distressed as they walk away.
The women did not file a complaint. But the homeowner who had installed the CCTV camera which caught the act alerted the police after reviewing the footage the following morning.
As the CCTV footage emerged online and triggered outrage, the Bengaluru police registered a case under sections 74 (molestation), 75 (sexual harassment), and 78 (stalking) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara also took cognisance of the case and spoke to the police brass about it. But he also sparked public outrage for referring to the case as an “isolated incident”, remarking that “such incidents take place once in a while in such a big city” like Bengaluru.
A senior police officer said they started the probe with nothing more than grainy footage that made facial recognition difficult.
Santosh, who worked as a cab driver in Brookefield, has allegedly told the police that he was drunk at the time of the incident and that he fled to Hosur in Tamil Nadu to stay with a friend when the video surfaced on social media. When the pressure mounted, he escaped again—this time to Kozhikode, Kerala.
The officer said the special teams tracked his movements through 700 cameras. “The turning point in the investigation came when officers spotted the accused riding a scooter in one of the videos. The image of the scooter was shared at several garages in Tilaknagar and SG Palya, where a mechanic recognised it and helped confirm the suspect’s identity,” said an officer in the know of the development.
The scooter’s registration number led them to his house. His family confirmed he had been missing. Police said Santosh had also abandoned his mobile phone to ensure the police did not use it to track his movements.
