Man gets 3-month term for groping woman

dubai — A man, who groped a woman as she walked home at night, was sentenced to three months in jail after a Dubai court found him guilty of a molestation charge.

The 28-year-old Sri Lankan, who is a sales executive and currently detained, denied a molestation charge at the Court of First Instance. The court ordered his deportation.

The incident took place on July 17 when the Filipina complainant was heading to her place in Al Muraqqabat.

The complainant, 28, said she had just left a pharmacy at 10pm and was walking home when she spotted a man following her. “He caught me off guard when he groped me. I was so surprised I hit him with a plastic bag I was carrying.”

As he kept walking, she tried to catch up with him and tell him to stay till the police arrived. But he pushed her away by grabbing her neck with his arm.

She recounted how she followed him to a building. “As I

pressed the lift button, he walked out of the lift and grabbed me again by my neck. An Arab man stopped him from assaulting me and asked him about what was going on.”

As she was talking to the police on her mobile phone and leading them to her whereabouts, the man disappeared.

A police corporal said they checked the surveillance cameras of the defendant’s building. “After a two-day close watch, we learned that he had moved out because someone told him about the complaint and that we were looking for him.”

Upon police instructions, the defendant’s sponsor told him to turn himself in at the police station. The police heard from the accused’s sponsor that he had been involved in several similar incidents at work which were then settled by the company’s administration.