The Congress MLA from Mann-Khatav, Jaykumar Gore, who has been accused of sexual harassment, surrendered before the Satara district police on Tuesday morning. Gore’s anticipatory bail had been rejected by the Bombay High Court on Monday.
The High Court had also quashed his bail plea and his lawyers’ plea seeking time for him to surrender. The Satara Superintendent of Police, Sandip Patil, said Gore was found missing from the MLA hostel in Mumbai after his pre-arrest bail application was rejected.
In November 2016, a woman lodged a complaint with the Satara police accusing the three-time MLA of sending lewd messages on WhatsApp and seeking sexual favours. The complainant said she met Gore in connection with certain skill-development programmes she used to organise, but he abused his powers to harass her.
A case was lodged under Sections 354-A (sexual harassment), 354-D (stalking), 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, and sections of the Information Technology Act.
A criminal record
In April 2015, Gore was arrested for allegedly kidnapping S.S. Tayade, a cooperative society election officer, from Satara. Mr. Tayade was found two days later in Amravati district. In November 2014, Gore and four other Congress legislators were suspended for two years from the Maharashtra Assembly for heckling Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao. In 2009, he was booked for attacking Nationalist Congress Party leader Sadashiv Pol.
Strong-arm tactics
Gore’s kin are notorious for resorting to strong-arm tactics to impose their diktat in Mann Taluk. In 2013, an eyewitness to the murder of a Dalit man by 12 upper caste villagers in Satara in 2007, was brutally beaten up along with his wife. The prime suspect in the murder was believed to be Gore’s nephew, Navnath Kapse. In January 2015, the Satara police lodged a case of negligence against Gore’s brothers in connection with a gelatin stick blast in Mann that killed three labourers and seriously injured five others.
