Same clothes aid cops in nabbing Mumbai train molester

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) yesterday caught the accused in the Grant Road molestation case, in which a 22-year-old MBA student was stripped and sexually harassed in a ladies compartment of a local train on Thursday. mid-day had reported the incident (‘Woman stripped, molested in ladies compartment', August 8).

Cops found the culprit sleeping on the footpath yesterday, still in the same T-shirt and pants he was wearing when he had molested the girl on the train

Cops had been looking for the culprit with the help of CCTV grabs, which showed a youth in a blue T-shirt and red pants. When the RPF finally caught up to him, they found him sleeping on the footpath at Lamington Road, still wearing the same clothes.

The CCTV footage

According to the officials, the accused, 19-year-old Pappu Yadav came to Mumbai from Orissa by Gitanjali Express on August 5. He was supposed to find work and send his mother and five sisters money, but he hadn't found a job yet. He was under the influence of alcohol on the day he molested the girl.

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"According to him, molesting or teasing a girl is not something wrong. He claims he was not even aware that he had committed a crime by molesting her," said an RPF staffer, adding, "It was also surprising when we saw that he was wearing the same T-shirt and pants he was wearing on the day of incident, which was visible in the CCTV footage."

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The survivor and her family had refused to lodge a police complaint, but after the incident, the RPF formed three teams to hunt down the culprit. Now the case has been handed over to the Government Railway Police (GRP). Anand Vijay Jha, senior divisional security commissioner for Western Railway RPF, said, "The boy has been arrested and handed over to the railway police for further action."