Police say Manish Paras Rai changed shaved his moustache in an attempt to change his appearance
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The Oshiwara police's about 20-day hunt for the man who sexually assaulted a six-year-old boy inside a public toilet in Jogeshwari West ended with the arrest of a ragpicker from Jogeshwari.
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The minor had gone to a public toilet after attending classes at Gulshan Nagar. On December 2 afternoon, an unknown man forced himself in, locked the toilet from inside and sodomised him. A real estate agent had helped the boy get home after finding him soaked in urine and excreta in the evening.
The police, based on the description of the man given by the boy, had prepared a sketch and started a manhunt to nab the accused. Their search ended in Jogeshwari where Rai was trying to hide by changing his appearance.
"The crime spot was a public toilet. So we had been searching for the suspects among the kamgars, ragpickers, locals who use the toilet, etc," said an officer from the Oshiwara police station.
"In a bid to conceal his identity, Rai had shaved his moustache and was chopping his long hair with a shaving blade when we spotted him at Kajupada junction in Jogeshwari," the officer added. "When he saw the policemen, he tried to flee from the spot, but our four officers chased him for half a kilometre and nabbed him."
Later during interrogation, Rai confessed to sodomising the boy, the officer said.
The Oshiwara police had quizzed 52 kamgars, 30 ragpickers, 20 locals, which led the teams investigating the case to the location where Rai had moved after allegedly committing the crime. He earlier lived on the footpath at Jawahar Nagar in Goregaon.
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