A 30-year-old man reportedly posed as a transgender person, entered a woman’s house in Mumbai’s Powai area and sexually assaulted her on the pretext of blessing her with a child. The accused, identified as Anil Shinde, was later arrested.
The woman, who has been married for around five years, lives with her husband, who was away at the time of the incident, and an elderly relative, The Indian Express reported. The couple do not have a child and Shinde used it as a pretext to enter the home and perform a ritual to bless them with a child. The police nabbed the accused the same night after tracing the autorickshaw, which he had taken from the building after assaulting the woman. He initially pretended to bless the elderly woman, police was quoted as saying. But during his conversation with her, Shinde learnt that there was a young woman in the house and had no child despite being married for several years. He then offered to perform a ritual on the woman that would bless the couple with a child. He first touched her head on pretext of performing the ritual and then touched her inappropriately and sexually assaulted her, the Indian Express report added, citing police. After realising that she had been sexually assaulted, the woman informed her husband and the couple approached Powai police station that evening. The police registered a rape case and began examining the CCTV footage from the building and surrounding areas in which they allegedly spotted Shinde boarding an autorickshaw. During the investigation, police found that Shinde was indeed a man who was posing as a transgender person. He has been arrested and produced before a court which remanded him to police custody till Monday. Police are now investigating if Shinde may have used a similar modus operandi to carry out similar crimes.
Shinde then sexually assaulted the woman an fled the house with ₹ 2,000 on Wednesday afternoon, police was quoted as saying.
He allegedly spoke to the young woman for some time and then asked her to lie down on the bed, police said. He was traced to Kalwa and was detained on Wednesday night.
