Sexual assault case: Lover's tip helped cops track down accused

Mumbai: A day after the arrest of a 27-year-old schoolbus cleaner for allegedly sexually assaulting a three year-old girl from a school in the western suburbs, police pointed out that a combination of the minor not being able to identify the accused correctly and the school’s alleged lack of attention to security details — like verifying the contact details of the accused with the police at the time of his employment — had almost helped the accused escape. But an alleged lover of Prashant Modak, the accused, finally helped the police track him down.

The case came to light when the mother of the minor complained to Dindoshi police about a ‘school photographer’ molesting her daughter.

An FIR was registered against the ‘photographer’ under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the IPC last Friday. However, soon after police started questioning the two photographers who worked with the school, they realised that they had the wrong people.

“Both of them denied the allegations. Other investigations also did not bring forward any complaints against the men as the two had been working with the school for over 18 years,” the source said.

Their doubts were confirmed when the minor failed to identify any of them as the perpetrator. The police went back to combing through footage from the CCTV cameras in the school to nail Modak.

“The girl identified the accused in one of the footages. We narrowed it down to Prashant — a bus cleaner at the school. We learnt that he had not reported to work since the day the case had been registered,” the police official added. When the police reached the address provided by Modak to the school, they soon found the address to be wrong.

Modak, by then, had fled the city, switched off his phone and stayed put at his hometown in Sawantwadi. An alleged lover, who was often seen with Modak in the CCTV footages, helped the police to track him down.

Modak, after allegedly molesting the child repeatedly between June 29 and July 1, fled as soon as he heard the minor’s ward had filed a complaint.

“The school had failed to verify Prashant’s contact details at the time of his employment. This is mandatory and a serious breach,” said the police source.

A B Sawant, senior police inspector of Dindoshi police station, confirmed the incident.

“Modak was produced in court on Thursday and was remanded to custody for a week,” he said.

Meanwhile, angry guardians of students studying in the school pointed out that the school’s alleged negligence was nothing new.

“A Class II student injured his hand and was forced to keep sitting in the class for over three hours despite repeatedly telling the authorities about his pain. Turns out he had fractured his hand. This is serious negligence. The school should be more responsible about the security of our children,” a parent, who did not wish to be identified, said. A written complaint about the same has been sent to Dindoshi police station.

Despite repeated attempts, the school authorities did not respond to phonecalls and messages from us.

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