After Rehan Qureshi, Mumbai police begin hunt for another serial sex offender

The police believe there are at least six cases of sexual assault and rape against this second suspect who is known by the red T-shirt he is seen wearing in CCTV footage.

The year-long investigation into a series of molestation and rape cases in Navi Mumbai and Mumbai has alerted the police to two serial sex offenders of whom only one has been arrested. Rehan Abdul Rashid Qureshi, the 34-year-old accused in 19 cases including the 2010 rape-murders of two minors in Kurla, is one of the men the police have identified as a suspect. The other – known by the red T-shirt he’s seen wearing on CCTV footage – remains at large.

A man, suspected to be a serial sex offender, suspect, was last seen wearing a red T-shirt in CCTV footage, is still at large. Police in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai have started looking for this man. (HT Photo)

“The suspect targeted children between the ages of 10 and 14,” said Tushar Doshi, deputy commissioner of police (crime).

The police believe there are at least six cases of sexual assault and rape against this second suspect. One of these includes the rape of a girl and her brother. The cases sprawl across a wide area: Kandivli, Dindoshi, CBD Belapur, Sanpada and two in Kharghar.

According to a police source, the man has been spotted in CCTV footage and has a modus operandi similar to Qureshi’s, who would lure girls to isolated spots by telling them their father had asked the girls to help Qureshi bring a gas cylinder to their home.

The last case involving the second suspect, who was seen in a red t-shirt on CCTV, was in in Navi Mumbai, in July 2017.