Auto driver held for sexually harassing student

NEW DELHI : A 32-year-old autorickshaw driver allegedly masturbated in his vehicle while ferrying a 24-year-old f oreign national, a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), from outside a private hospital in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj to the university campus on Tuesday morning. The driver has been arrested, police said.

According to police, the woman said that when she saw the auto driver indulging in the “indecent” act, she deboarded his auto on campus. When she confronted him and raised an alarm, the auto driver fled with the vehicle. However, she clicked pictures of him and his vehicle.

This is the second incident of sexual crime against a foreign national reported from south Delhi in less than a fortnight. On October 18, a 16-year-old French student, who was in India on an exchange programme, was molested allegedly by the father of an Indian student at whose house in Saket she had stayed.

In the latest case, the woman reported the matter to police with pictures of the auto driver and his vehicle. She first called the police control room and then lodged a written complaint following which an FIR was registered at Vasant Kunj North police station.

The accused, Vipin Pal, was arrested on Tuesday evening.

“The auto driver has been booked under IPC Section 354A ,” RP Upadhyay, special commissioner of police (law and order — south zone), said.