INDIA. Mumbai: A 19-year-old manager of a guest house located at Byculla in South Mumbai was awarded two years’ imprisonment for molesting a Peruvian woman tourist by the 25th Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court, Mazgaon, on Friday.
The accused, Riyaz Ahmed Raju Ahmed, was awarded two years imprisonment, a fine of Rs 5,000, and further imprisonment of three months in case of failure to pay the fine on charges of molesting the 38-year old Peruvian tourist.
“The incident occurred on March 26 at night when Ahmad, working at Welcome Guest House located at Byculla East, South Mumbai, repeatedly touched the woman tourist inappropriately under the pretext of taking a selfie with her. He never knocked on the door of her room. He came into the room only to touch her. As such, she approached the police,” according to an official statement.
The police, who registered an offence (No 131/2023) under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, promptly arrested Ahmed, who was in the process of running away to his native place, Patakhpur, Vajiganj, in Uttar Pradesh. The case of assault or criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty was registered against the accused.
The statements of the witness and the victim were recorded within 24 hours since they had to leave the country, and a chargesheet had to be filed immediately against the accused. The Mumbai police faced problems recording the statements of the woman and another person, Sebastian, residing in the same hotel since they spoke only Spanish.
As such, the police sought help from translators and Google Translator to record their statements. The Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Mazgoan completed the trial in barely two months and sentenced Ahmed to two years imprisonment.
The court refused to grant any leniency to the accused, observing that the reputation of the country was at stake since the victim deposed that it is very difficult for a woman like her to travel alone in India. If the accused is given benefits under Section 4 of the Probation of Offenders Act, then a wrong message will be sent throughout the world, the court noted.
The case was investigated by Senior Police Inspector Ashok Khot, Inspector Chimaji Adhav, PSI Asif Pathan, Constables Nilesh Ghadge and Priyanka Thorat, under the supervision of Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar, Special CP Deven Bharti, Additional CP Anil Paraskar, DCP Akbar Pathan, and ACP Vithal Shinde.
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