A BPO employee was arrested on Thursday after an alert Railway Protection Force (RPF) officer saw him forcefully trying to hug and kiss a 21-year- old woman at Turbhe railway station.
Around 11.25 a.m. on Thursday, assistant sub-inspector D.K. Sharma of the Turbhe RPF was scanning CCTV camera footage from the station. He saw Naresh Karunashankar Joshi (43) hugging the woman, and her pushing him away, at the Thane end of platforms 2 and 3. When Mr. Sharma went to the spot, the woman, a resident of Mulund, made a verbal complaint to him. She pointed out the accused, who was still there.
“Our team nabbed the accused and handed him over to the Vashi Government Railway Police (GRP),” inspector Lokesh Sagar from the Turbhe RPF said.
The accused did not tell the GRP his name for hours. Assistant Commissioner of Police, Railways, Angad Jadhavar said, “He did not have any identification with him. His mobile phone had a screen lock, and he refused to reveal the password. After two-and-a-half hours, he revealed his name and then address. He was not drunk or under influence of any substance. We produced him in court, which sent him to judicial custody.”
Mr. Joshi lives his parents, wife, eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son at Simplex Society in Sector 7, Ghansoli. The family, clueless about his whereabouts, approached the Rabale police, who approached his employers at CBD Belapur. A senior associate of the BPO said, “We told the police he had not come to office on Thursday and Friday. We learnt of the arrest on Friday evening from the media. It’s difficult to believe that he is involved in such a case. As company policy, we cannot reveal his job profile.”
Mr. Joshi was arrested under Section 354 (a) of the Indian Penal Code for outraging the modesty of a woman.
