Mumbai Crime: Receipt helps Vakola cops nab rapist of 12-year-old

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A receipt helped the Vakola police track down the man who is accused of raping a 12-year-old girl at her home in November last year. The accused, identified as Chandrakant Nilkanth Chavan, had bought a wallet to gift the minor on the day of the incident and left it at her residence, accidentally leaving behind an evidence of his crime, police said.

On November 23, the minor, a Std VI student and a Vakola resident, was returning home from school when Chavan allegedly started following her, the police said. When she was at the doorstep, the accused tried to give her the wallet but she declined. Chavan then allegedly forced himself in and raped her, they added. The girl's widowed mother, who works as a cook, was away at work at the time.

"Initially, we did not have any clue in the case, but during investigation we found that the accused had left a wallet at her place. And inside was a bill for the wallet he had got for her, with the name 'Nilkanth' written on it," Police Sub Inspector Nitin Savne of Vakola Police station told mid-day.

The police took the help of the election commission department and prepared a list of people named Nilkanth in the Santacruz area. They interviewed 86 people, including the father of the accused, who led them to Chavan.

"We called all the people for questioning and we came across a 45-year-old resident of Vakola. We asked him about his son and he told us that he had gone to Karnataka for business in November and hadn't returned since," Savne said. "Chavan's father gave a photo of his son and the girl identified him as her rapist. With the help of call records, we traced Chavan to Karnataka and arrested him."

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