Serial kidnapper nabbed

When the Charkop police arrested Pritesh Doshi (24) early on Wednesday for the alleged kidnap and rape of a 13-year-old in Kandivli, they didn’t know they had netted a serial kidnapper.

When the Charkop police arrested Pritesh Doshi (24) early on Wednesday for the alleged kidnap and rape of a 13-year-old in Kandivli, they didn’t know they had netted a serial kidnapper. But as the police investigated Doshi’s background, they found that he could be involved in a series of similar kidnap-and-rape cases as well as 26 cases of chain-snatching.

HT Image

Doshi, an unemployed Class 10 dropout, police said, was also the man who kidnapped and assaulted a filmmaker’s daughter on May 10. He had abducted her from Lokhandwala Complex and taken her to a Madh Island hotel.

Police said Doshi confessed to both crimes.

According to the police, Doshi targeted girls aged 13 to 15. He would find out the name of the target’s father and then approach her in a rickshaw. “He would threaten to tell the victim’s father of something she was trying to hide — such as her visiting discotheques on the sly,” said Senior Police Inspector PS Gavande. “He would then take the victim to a guesthouse and rape her.”

Gavande said Doshi would sometimes even threaten to kill the victim’s father.

Police said Doshi met the Kandivli girl on Tuesday while she was out with a friend. Doshi told her that her father was waiting for her in a hospital.

The unsuspecting girl got into the rickshaw. Gavande said Doshi took her to a guesthouse in Madh Island and raped her.