Thane man held for sexually harassing woman at railway station

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The Government Railway Police deployed at Thane railway station on Thursday arrested a 45-year-old man for allegedly sexually harassing a woman. The police, on Friday, said that the accused sexually harassed the woman after she alighted from a local train and was walking on the platform.

Senior inspector Pandhari Khande told PTI that the arrested accused Mohammed Rarani has been booked under Section 354 (assaults or uses criminal force to any woman, intending to outrage her modesty) and other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code. He added that the incident happened around 8.30 am on Thursday.

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The woman reportedly raised an alarm when the accused allegedly sexually harassed her and the other commuters pinned him down and handed him over to the police.

Nearly a week ago, a similar incident happened with a teen girl at Dombivli station. A 45-year-old man allegedly molested the teen girl while she was alighting from a suburban local train at Dombivli. The accused and the aggrieved were reportedly in the same compartment and while alighting from the train, the man grabbed the minor's hand.

The incident happened around 5.30 pm. The minor who is a junior college student had raised an alarm alerting the commuters present at the scene. They got a hold of him and handed the accused to the GRP. He too was charged under IPC 354 and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act).

A 24-year-old woman was previously sexually harassed by an unidentified man on a moving local train. The incident happened between Charni Road and Grant Road suburban stations of the Western Railway in June. The accused reportedly made lewd gestures toward the woman and used obscene language as the Churchgate-bound local, she had boarded, approached Grant Road station and later alighted from the train. She filed a complaint with Railway Police five days after the incident.

Meanwhile, another 20-year-old woman was sexually assaulted by a man in the ladies' compartment of a moving local train when she was travelling alone to Belapur in Navi Mumbai. The girl was on her way to her college at 7:30 am when the accused attempted to sexually assault her finding her alone but her retaliation scared him off and he fled. She switched compartments and told fellow passengers about the incident who helped her contact the police. They did not only arrest the accused but also requested the college to postpone her examination since she was overcome by the incident.

With PTI inputs