Days after a PhD student of Jawaharlal Nehru University was allegedly molested by a motorist on campus, police said they have arrested a 27-year-old man in connection with the case. The accused was identified and caught after more than a hundred CCTVs were scanned in and around the vicinity.
The woman was taking a stroll on the campus around 11.45 pm Monday when the accused, who was on a scooter, allegedly molested her. After the woman raised an alarm, he managed to escape. A case of outraging the modesty of a woman was registered.
On Sunday, police arrested a man named Akshay Dolai. He runs a mobile repair and SIM shop at Bhikaji Cama Place and lives with his wife and two children in Munirka.
According to police, Akshay was drunk at the time of the incident. On Monday night, he was on his scooter outside the JNU campus when he saw three women walking inside. He followed them and wasn’t stopped at the entry gates. The women reached their hostel, but he kept driving inside the campus, police said.
He then found the PhD student jogging towards the East Gate. He followed her and allegedly stopped her at an isolated spot. The student thought the man wanted to ask her for directions but he allegedly molested her.
Police said the woman took out her phone to call PCR. The accused got scared, snatched her phone, and escaped from the West gate.
DCP (Southwest) Gaurav Sharma said, “We received information at night and went to the campus. We checked the registers at the entry gates but found no entry related to the accused or his vehicle. It was difficult; the woman was also traumatised. The CCTVs at JNU didn’t have clear video quality and we had to check other footage; we scanned over 1,000 CCTVs in the area.”
The investigating team used the footage and mapped the route taken by Akshay and found he went back to Munirka.
“After he left the campus, he went to Nelson Mandela Marg but saw police pickets there and drove to Ring Road. We identified him and then arrested him from his house,” said DCP Sharma.
Police said that during questioning, Akshay confessed to his crime. He told police that six years ago, he used to work at the railway reservation counter inside the campus.
Police said they had recovered the student’s phone, clothes worn by Akshay at the time of the incident, and the scooter seen in the CCTV footage.
