16 January,2023 07:35 AM IST | Mumbai | Diwakar Sharma
Mangesh Sonawane, the accused
The Ulhasnagar police have arrested a 20-year-old rape accused for stalking a 15-year-old survivor after getting out on bail. Mangesh Sonawane was arrested last year for kidnapping the girl and raping her on multiple occasions in the Ahmednagar area for four months in 2021, police said.
According to the survivor, Sonawane started stalking her near her college, asking her to get in touch with him. On January 11, when she ignored his attempts, he pulled her by the hair and brandished a blade, threatening to assault her if she refused to meet him, the girl told mid-day.
"He forcefully took me to a secluded place near my college and asked me to stay in touch with him. When I told him that I don't want to talk to him, he took out a blade and said that he will rip me apart and also rape me before happily going to jail. I got terrified, but the passersby and my college seniors intervened and saved me," she recalled.
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"While leaving, he told me âmai kal wapas aunga' (I'll come back tomorrow again)," she said. She then informed her parents who accompanied her to college the next day, January 12. "He saw me from afar and fled as my parents were with me. We went to the Hill Line police station and lodged a new complaint against him," the girl said.
The police filed a fresh FIR under Sections 354 (molestation) and 354D (stalking) of the IPC, and Sections 8 and 12 of the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO).
However, Sonawane still came to the college the next day, on January 13, but ran away when he saw that the girl was with her mother. Assistant Inspector Shriram Padwal from Hill Line police station, who is the investigating officer, said, "We arrested him on January 14 and produced him before a court that sent him into police custody until January 17.
He was arrested in March last year for kidnapping and raping the survivor in November 2021." "He got out of jail in November last year and had since been stalking and threatening the survivor near her college," Padwal said.
Jan 14
Day Sonawane was arrested for stalking
