Days After Lawyer's Complaint On Twitter, Mumbai Police Nabs Man Who Molested Her

The Mumbai Government Railway Police (GRP) has arrested a man for allegedly molesting a woman lawyer inside the ladies compartment of a local train between Andheri and Borivali last week, said officials Monday. The 25-year-old lawyer had shared her ordeal to file the complaint due to the incentive personnel at the station and called on Mumbai Police to sensitise their personnel towards such incidents.

According to The Indian Express, the accused is identified as Biharilal Yadav, 43, a resident of Kalwa. He works as a labourer and was identified based on footage from CCTV cameras at several railway stations, according to officials. “He was arrested by Vashi GRP in 2021 in a mobile theft case that helped police ascertain his identity,” said Arshuddin Shaikh, a senior inspector with the GRP Crime Branch.

Mumbai Police Nabs Man Who Molested Her

The CCTV footage showed Yadav had changed multiple trains and was moving in and out of different compartments. The police said prior to the incident, Yadav was not wearing pants and was roaming at the Vile Parle railway station. Yadav also told the police he was ‘intoxicated’ at the time of the incident.

The complainant had taken to Twitter to narrate her ordeal at the Andheri GRP station where she had gone to lodge a complaint. She said she was made to wait for hours, hammered with unnecessary questions, and scrutiny and was made to recall the incident again and again to different sets of police officers.

In her tweet, the woman mentioned that women constables suggested that she should have hit back at her assaulter who troubled her.

However, Quaiser Khalid, the commissioner of GRP, who has now tied up with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) to take workshops for GRP personnel training on how to react to a complainant, especially women in a state of shock and panic, told Hindustan Times, “The women constables should not have spoken in that manner without knowing the situation that the victim was in. When we checked the CCTV recordings, we found that the accused was not fully dressed, was in an inebriated state, and would have also proved dangerous.”

The SOPs will be shared with all police stations and training will be repeated so that the GRP personnel are reminded of it frequently. According to GRP officials, the NGO workers would visit each GRP police station and impart training on sensitivity.

Suggested Reading: Woman Recounts Being Molested In Local Train, Calls For Sensitising Police