30-year-old arrested for stalking school girls in Andheri, cops look for accomplice

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30-year-old arrested for stalking school girls in Andheri, cops look for accomplice

On Monday afternoon, two teenage girls were walking near the Apna Bazaar Lane in Andheri West while returning from private tuition classes when they noticed two men in a car staring at them. They passed lewd comments and made obscene hand gestures at them Mumbai The Amboli police arrested a 30-year-old man on Tuesday and are looking for his accomplice for allegedly stalking two 15-year-old girls in Andheri west on Monday evening. According to the Amboli police, the men, natives of Uttar Pradesh, drove all the way to Mumbai in their Mercedes and had been staying at their friend’s house at Veera Desai Road in Andheri West. On Monday afternoon, two teenage girls were walking near the Apna Bazaar Lane in Andheri West while returning from private tuition classes when they noticed two men in a car staring at them. They passed lewd comments and made obscene hand gestures at them. The girls, studying in SSC, got scared and decided to take an autorickshaw to avoid the accused. As they sat in an auto-rickshaw, they noticed that the Mercedes (MH 46 BF 8567) was following their auto. The auto driver tried to speed, but the men chased and intercepted the auto. “By then auto driver had realised the intentions of the two men and took a sudden turn. Before the men could get off the car, he managed to get away,” said Bandopant Bansode, senior police inspector of Amboli police station. The accused, however, continued to chase the auto. “After a few meters the auto driver had to slow down due to traffic. Taking advantage of this, one of the accused, identified as Salman Hanif Qureshi, got off the car and placed a hand written note on the lap of one of the girls before driving away,” said Bansode. An officer said that the girls had to go through terrifying situation for more than 20 minutes. “The girls told us that they wanted to scream for help but they were scared that they would be abducted by the men,” said an officer from Amboli police station. The girls then called their parents and approached the Amboli police. “The father of one of the girls gave us the hand written note which had the mobile number of one of the accused,” said Bansode. With the help of the mobile number, we traced Qureshi to Gautami Building in Vaishali Nagar in Jogeshwari West. Qureshi has been arrested for stalking and molestation and under relevant sections of the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. The police are now looking for Qureshi’s accomplice identified as Zeeshan.