On February 23, the Maharashtra Police registered an FIR against a person named Sahil Shaikh for molesting an 18-year-old Hindu girl in the Bhingar area of Ahmednagar district. The accused was harrasing the girl for refusing to enter into a relationship with him and threatened to burn her face with acid.
The victim girl confirmed to OpIndia that the accused was arrested by the Police while he tried to escape. “The Police arrested him on the night of February 23 while he was going to Pune,” she said.
According to the FIR copy obtained by OpIndia, Shaikh has been pursuing the girl for some time, ignoring her rejections, and then one day issued her serious threats. The incident happened in the first week of February when the girl was returning home from her college. The victim was on her bike when she was stopped by the accused in Beleshwar Chowk. Shaikh then publicly molested her after asking her to reconsider his proposal to enter into a relationship with him. He also threatened to kill her father and burn her face with acid if she refused his proposal.
“I am in the first year of my college. Sahil is friends with one of our college group members. We were superficially introduced to the group. After that day he would come outside the college and try to talk to me. He also would interfere in the college group matters. He used to follow me and wanted me to communicate back with him. Later one day he proposed to me and asked me to get into a love relationship with him,” the girl stated in the FIR.
“On refusal”, the girl said, “Shaikh threatened to kill me. He also threatened my friends to stay away from me.” This way it would be easy for him to follow the victim girl while on her way to college and home.
In the first week of February, Shaikh stopped the victim girl while on her way to home in Yashwant Nagar and asked her to reconsider the proposal. When she refused, he molested her and threatened to kill her. He also said that he would kill her father. The victim girl got scared and decided not to tell any of this thing at home.
Recently, on February 22, the accused forcefully barged into the girl’s home as he learned that the girl’s father had fixed her marriage in her community. He threatened her father and asked him to cancel the marriage. “Tum tumhare beti ki shaadi age badhao varna mai tamasha karunga (postpone your daughter’s wedding, otherwise I’ll create a huge scene here),” the accused was quoted as saying in the complaint.
He also issued threats to the girl’s father saying that he would murder his other family members and would ruin his daughter’s face with acid if he fails to call off the wedding. The wedding is scheduled for today ie March 1.
The victim girl while exclusively talking to OpIndia confirmed the accused’s arrest and stated that his family members are forcing her father to take back the case. “They want my father to take this case back. But given my marriage and threats issued by him earlier, my father has refused to take back the case. Also, we have deployed bouncers and required security out of the house. Anything can happen. He had issued threats to kill my family and launch an acid attack on me. My father is quite worried,” she said.
OpIndia also tried to connect to the state police to inquire about further action in the case, but the calls remained unanswered. The Police have booked and arrested the accused under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354 D (stalking behaviours interrelated to harassment and intimidation), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) and 506 (criminal Intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. Further investigation into the case is underway.
