Two men working for an app-based food delivery service were arrested for molesting and abusing two women at Brahmand Circle on Ghodbunder Road in Thane on Monday evening.
According to the 37-year-old complainant, a resident of Rabodi, she had come on her scooter to Vedant Hospital to discharge her mother and take her home. However, the woman sent her mother home in an autorickshaw and drove back to Rabodi with a 27-year-old friend at 5.30 p.m.
On their way home, two men on a motorcycle — identified as Chhotelal Subhashchandra Soni (35) from Kopri, and Gajanan Ganesh Shinde (29) from Kalwa — started driving beside their two-wheeler and abusing them. When the women confronted the accused and questioned why they were hurling insults at them, the men angrily demanded the women stop their vehicle by the roadside. Mr. Soni then hurled obscenities at the women, while Mr. Shinde manhandled and molested them. A traffic policeman witnessed the incident and alerted the control room of the Thane City police. Beat marshals from the Kapurbawadi police station were rushed to the site and they caught the two men.
The police then registered an FIR and charged the men under Sections 354 (assault or using criminal force on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
The accused were presented in court on Tuesday and remanded in judicial custody. They were later released on bail.
