Two weeks following the rape of a 26-year-old female at Swargate bus station, a 42-year-old man in a van offered to take a 16-year-old girl to Panvel, where he raped her. A man he knew made the 16-year-old college-bound girl sit in his car and promised to drop her off at the bus stop. He transported her to an abandoned location and sexually assaulted her in the car rather than driving her to the bus stop. The Panvel Rural Police filed a case and took the man into custody when the complainant approached them on Thursday, even though the event occurred on March 3.
The young girl knew the defendant, Amol Harishchandra Padrath (42), who works as a driver.
“The defendant once operated a vehicle that carried schoolchildren. There were no children on the bus when the incident occurred. The victim got inside the van after he saw her on the road and offered to drop her off at the college, according to senior police inspector Gajanan Ghadge of the Panvel Taluka police station.
On March 3, the victim, a junior college student, left home around six in the morning. The accused drove the vehicle to an abandoned location in the Chinchwali region despite having promised to drop her off at the Shantivan bus station. He allegedly raped her there and threatened to have serious repercussions if he told anyone.
The youngster later told her parents about the incident and went to the police on Thursday after originally not telling them. The defendant was taken into jail and is being held in police custody until Tuesday.