more-in A photograph clicked by a molestation victim, and the “twisted” hand of the man subsequently spotted in CCTV camera footage, helped the Vashi Government Railway Police (GRP) trace him within 48 hours of the case being registered. The Hindu had reported on Thursday that the police had detained a suspect on Wednesday night for allegedly molesting a student of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in a suburban train, and would arrest him once they verified his involvement. Around 6 p.m. on September 11, two first-year Master of Social Work students from TISS boarded a train for Govandi from Vashi. They missed the ladies’ compartment, and got into the general compartment, which was crowded. Police inspector Nandakishore Saste from the Vashi GRP said, “The accused allegedly flashed one of the students and touched her inappropriately. She managed to click his picture before getting down at Govandi.” The second girl, a foreign exchange student from Europe, was also groped, but could not see the face of the accused. After the students filed a complaint with the police on Monday night, officials from Vashi GRP started checking the CCTV camera footage of the day of the incident. “We saw the man in the photograph getting down at Tilak Nagar and changing compartments. We noticed that his left hand was a little twisted, which helped us trace him in subsequent CCTV footage, which showed him getting down at Kurla. Using this information, we laid a trap at Kurla railway station and nabbed him,” Mr. Saste said. The accused, Ayaaz Sattar Qureshi (26), is a resident of Mankhurd, and works at a meat export company in Sanpada as a helper. Officials said that on the day of the incident, he changed compartments at Tilak Nagar fearing that other commuters would catch him as the students had raised an alarm. He later got down at Kurla to meet his aunt, who lives near the railway station. On Wednesday, too, he planned to visit his aunt, and got down at Kurla, where the Vashi GRP and Crime Branch Unit VII officials had laid a trap for him. Mr. Qureshi’s hand was deformed after an accident in 2013, when he fell while alighting a local train. Police inspector Santost Dhanwate from the Crime Branch said, “He told us that he got divorced four years ago, and his family refused to get him remarried. He has since developed the habit of molesting women in trains and crowded placed. He said he was once caught by commuters at Kurla and handed over to the police, but was later let go. We couldn’t find any such record. We suspect the victim in the case must have refused to file a case.” Mr. Saste said that in such cases, women usually do not register a case because of which the accused are never caught. “The fact that none of the commuters helped the girl is more shocking,” he said. The victim, who hails from Manipur, said, “I am glad that he has been caught. I am told that he had done this before as well. Every woman who experiences harassment should come forward and report it.”

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