Missing girl’s 20-yr-old friend held for sexual assault, kidnapping
NAVIMUMBAI: A day after a 17-yearold girl who had accused a deputy inspector general (DIG) of molesting her last June, was rescued from Dehradun, Uttarakhand, the Taloja police arrested her friend Ankit Singh, 20, on charges of sexual assault and kidnapping.
Before running away, the teen had left behind a note on January 7, stating she was going to commit suicide. In her note, she blamed DIG Nishikant More for her death. The duo had allegedly ran away to Dehradun and planned to settle down there. Singh had even taken up a job at a manufacturing unit. Shortly after her family approached the Taloja police , they discovered CCTV footage of the girl walking with Singh at Kharghar railway station.
They were seen boarding a train to Kurla and then going to Mumbai to board a train to Uttar Pradesh (UP. Singh, a native of
Jaunpur, and the girl stayed in UP for a couple of days before leaving for Dehradun. Singh found a job with the help of his friend there.
“With the help of the UP special task force, we traced them. Singh has been arrested under section 8 (punishment for sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and has been remanded in police custody till January 27,” said Ashok Dudhe, deputy commissioner of police, zone 2.
The case hit the headlines last month after the Taloja police booked More for allegedly molesting the minor girl at her birthday party in June 2019. Police are on the lookout for More and have initiated proceedings to get the court to declare him a proclaimed offender under section 82 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
MUMBAI: The Esplanade court on Wednesday granted bail to gangster Ejaz Lakdawala’s daughter Sonia in connection with a fake passport case, but rejected her bail application in connection with the extortion case in which she was arrested on January 6. Sonia will, therefore, continue to stay in judicial custody.
Her bail plea was rejected after the Mumbai crime branch opposed the application in the extortion case because they suspect she might have helped her father in another five to six extortion cases in the city. Crime branch officers also told the court that Sonia had been interacting with her father, using at least seven mobile applications that government agencies could not recover transcripts of.
The crime branch claims she used an application to transfer US dollars to her father and allegedly helped him to run his extortion business in the country via various apps.
However, Sonia’s lawyer Devanand Manerkar, said, “No doubt that she is Ejaz Lakdawala’s daughter. She was born in the gangster’s family but it does not mean that she is a gangster by birth. The police are claiming Sonia was continuously in touch with her father. Being his daughter and due to love and affection, she may have been in touch with him, but she has no involvement in the crime or any criminal activities.”
Sonia was arrested at Mumbai international airport on December 28 when she attempting to fly to Nepal on a fake passport. Police arrested her in the fake passport case and on January 6 she was arrested in the extortion case for demanding and threatening a Bandra-based builder. Lakdawala was also arrested in the same case after being arrested from Patna on January 8.