Mumbai cops nab serial rapist after he attacked another minor

Five weeks after the horrific reports of a nine-year-old girl being raped in Wadala, the police finally caught the culprit after he attempted to rape yet another minor girl in a nearby area. On being questioned, the accused later confessed his crimes to the Wadala Truck Terminal police.

The police were using this sketch to identify the culprit, based on the nine-year-old survivor's descriptions

Cops had been looking for the accused identified as Shafiq Abdul Rashiq Ahmad Shah (19) ever since he had raped the nine-year-old on October 25 (‘Nine-year-old raped in Wadala', October 26). They were using a sketch that had been prepared on the basis of the survivor's description of the assailant. However, no one had been able to identify him so far.

mid-day's report on October 26

On November 29, however, a few locals in Shanti Nagar spotted Shah taking a six-year-old behind some bushes near the Customs ground. They immediately apprehended him and handed him over to the police station. There, Shah revealed that he had lured the girl with a chocolate, and also admitted to ensnaring the nine-year-old the same way, in October.

An officer from the Wadala Truck Terminal police station said, "The accused's mode of operation was to rape minor girls in the area. He targeted girls who hadn't seen him before, and would have trouble identifying him." Adding that their efforts with the sketch had been unsuccessful so far, the officer said, "There was some problem with the sketch.

We had shown it to everyone in the area, but nobody had identified him. The previous survivor didn't narrate his description properly, due to which there were some issues with the sketch." Shah, an unemployed resident of Shanti Nagar, has been booked under Sections 363 (kidnapping), 376 (1) (rape), 506 (2) of the IPC, along with Sections 4, 8 and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.