Painter rapes minor in empty trains, held

A 21-year-old painter from Pune, Kishan Kumar Sahani, was arrested on Saturday for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl from Solapur who had taken a train to Mumbai after quarrelling with her parents.

A 21-year-old painter from Pune, Kishan Kumar Sahani, was arrested on Saturday for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl from Solapur who had taken a train to Mumbai after quarrelling with her parents.

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Sahani allegedly had sex with the victim in empty train coaches in Pune and Mumbai, before the Government Railway Police (GRP) at Dadar arrested him. Police said the girl did not speak of any force being used on her.

Prakash Kirdat, senior inspector at Dadar GRP, said on Friday morning, the victim, a Class 9 student, fought with her parents over her studies. She ran away from home to the railway station.

There, she got into a crowded general compartment of a train. Sahani, too, got into the same compartment and got a seat while the girl was standing. “Sahani offered the girl his seat and struck up a conversation,” Kirdat said. The girl admitted to Sahani she had no destination as she left her house in anger.

The girl then called her maternal aunt in Mumbai. “Around 9pm, Sahani took the victim to a coach in a train parked in the shed between Dadar and Elphinstone Road, where he allegedly again had sex with her,” Kirdat said.

Around 11pm, the girl’s aunt reached Dadar station. When the girl told her aunt about what happened, Sahani tried to flee.

“Commuters caught him and we have arrested him for rape,” the senior inspector said. The police are awaiting medical test reports of the girl and Sahani.