Sena leader, friend arrested for thrashing ‘serial molester’

Antop Hill police on Friday arrested Shiv Sena leader Nitin Nandgaonkar and his friend Darshanbir Singh Surjeet Singh Kochhar for allegedly attacking a man accused

Antop Hill police on Friday arrested Shiv Sena leader Nitin Nandgaonkar and his friend Darshanbir Singh Surjeet Singh Kochhar for allegedly attacking a man accused of molesting numerous women in Matunga. Nandgaonkar and Kochhar were released on bail the same day.

HT Image

The alleged molester, identified as Raijur Habibur Khan, 38, was beaten up by the Sena leader, who then uploaded a video of the attack on his social media page. In an accompanying post, Nandgaonkar said he was dedicating the video to the women of Maharashtra.

Earlier this month, CCTV camera footage from the foot overbridge (FoB) at Matunga railway station showed Khan approaching a woman and kissing her on the face before fleeing.

Khan was arrested in January on a pickpocketing charge. During the investigation, police discovered he was a serial offender and identified him as the man in the CCTV footage. Khan was released on bail as according to the police, none of the molested women had come forward to file a complaint against him.

According to a statement by the Mumbai Police, Khan approached them on Friday claiming he was attacked by Nandgaonkar and Kochhar. The police then arrested the two men and they were released on bail the same day.

“I thank Mumbai police for registering a case against me for teaching a lesson to prevent who touched mothers and sisters inappropriately,” Nandgaonkar said in an online post following his release.

The Sena leader hinted in another post that the complainant may have been someone other than Khan. “Arrest…Bail…Release.. Is the complainant an invisible soul? To protect mothers and sisters, I will keep thrashing perverts.. I thank all,” he wrote.

In the 6:51-minute video posted on his social media page, Nandgaonkar is seen introducing his subject, the man accused of being the serial offender. Khan is sitting on the floor of the Sena leader’s office. About 30 seconds into the video, Nandgaonkar starts slapping the man and forcing him to look into the camera. Nandgaonkar also elaborates on how he would have liked to punish Khan. “But the law bars me,” the Sena leader says in the video.

Nandgaonkar goes on to warn Khan that if he doesn’t stop harassing women, he will be stripped naked and paraded in the streets.

The video post was later removed from the social media site.

This isn’t a first for Nandgaonkar, who over the years has earned a reputation for his strong-arm tactics and vigilantism. He has been accused of manhandling taxi and auto drivers and had uploaded some of these encounters on social media as well. “The pervert is into sofa making. Imagine this person visiting a house and finding a woman alone? He was released soon on bail as the police stated that there are no witnesses against him. This may lead him to conduct heinous crimes against women,” Nandgaonkar told HT.

He and Kochhar have been booked under sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information Technology Act.