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Pharmacist, wife booked for sexual assault of a female taxi driver in Pune
Srivastav, who is a pharmacy graduate, took and shared illicit pictures of the victim, according to police.
A pharmacist from Pune, who also doubles up as a tattoo artist, was arrested and remanded to police custody for sexual assault of a woman.
Based on a complaint filed by a female taxi driver, working for a domestic taxi aggregator platform, the police apprehended the suspect identified as Prashant Govindprasad Srivastav, 38.
Srivastav, who is a pharmacy graduate, took and shared illicit pictures of the victim, according to police.
The suspect developed a rapport with the woman as she used to wait at Dhayari chowk for customers. The first incident happened around a year ago when she learned about Srivastav’s skills as a tattoo artist and approached him for tattoo. Before getting the tattoo done, Srivastav gave her a medicine that allegedly caused her to lose consciousness. That is when the arrested man took illicit pictures of her and started blackmailing her. He sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions and locations in the past year, according to her complaint.
The complaint states that for over a year, the victim, a mother of two teenaged children, was threatened of physical harm to her and her children.
“When he shared the pictures on WhatsApp, she decided to file a case. He was remanded to police custody till June 18,” said police inspector (crime) BL Khodade of Sinhagad road police station who is investigating the case.
According to the police, Srivastav’s wife, who runs the pharmacy with him, was aware of the incident and on one occasion also slapped the complainant.
Srivastav’s wife was also booked in the case for assaulting the woman. A case under Sections 376 (rape), 354 (molestation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with Section 67(a) of Information Technology Act was registered against Srivastav and his wife at Sinhagad road police station.
