Powai Police Arrest Kalwa Man for Sexually Assaulting Airhostess at Flat
The Powai police arrested a 28-year-old man from Kalwa within four hours of an FIR being registered late Tuesday night in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a 25-year-old airhostess at a residential flat in Powai.
The accused, identified as Anil Shinde, allegedly posed as a transgender person to gain access to the premises. Police said Shinde first approached the residential building through gate number one around 12.15 pm on Tuesday but was stopped by a security guard. He then bypassed the security arrangements and entered the building through gate number two around 12.20 pm.
After entering, Shinde knocked on several doors on an upper floor before reaching the ground floor, where an 85-year-old resident opened the door. Shinde gained the senior citizen's trust by chanting mantras and claiming he could ward off the evil eye to cure illnesses. The elderly resident then introduced him to the 25-year-old airhostess, who had been living in the flat as a paying guest for the past six months.
Shinde claimed he could help cure her husband, who was hospitalised with dengue after travelling to Mumbai from Varanasi. He then took the airhostess into a bedroom under the pretext of curing the illness and sexually assaulted her. The victim raised an alarm, prompting Shinde to flee. Before leaving, he collected Rs 200 from the airhostess and Rs 100 from the elderly flat owner as dakshina.
The victim approached the Powai police station, where an FIR was registered at 11 pm on Tuesday. A team supervised by DCP Datta Nalawade and led by Senior Inspector AS Sawant, Inspector Sushant Bandgar, and Sub-Inspectors Ramchandra Pinjarkar and Sandeep Patil initiated an investigation.
Investigators tracked the autorickshaw Shinde used by reviewing CCTV footage. The driver led police to the Kharegaon slum in Kalwa, where Shinde was apprehended. Police noted that Shinde had hired the autorickshaw for a nearly 40-km round trip between Kalwa and Powai, paying Rs 1,200 for the fare despite earning only Rs 300 from the flat's residents.
According to police, Shinde is not a transgender person but an impostor who begged across the city. He was booked for rape and criminal intimidation and remanded to police custody until August 24.
