Mumbai police have registered cases under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (PCSOA) against two persons in separate cases, one of them for the rape of mentally challenged girls.
Trombay police in suburban Mumbai yesterday arrested Rajesh Tare, a 38-year-old school watchman, for raping two mentally challenged girls four months back.
The incidents came to light after some social workers, who were working on a project in the area, learnt about them.
Madhuri Ramekar of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences took the victim girls, aged between 16-18-years, to the police and got a complaint registered.
According to police, the girls suffer from cognitive difficulty in speaking.
Police officials said that Tare first raped one of the girls in the school bathroom. Some days later, he took the other girl to the bathroom and molested her.
He was booked for rape for both the incidents, as per the amended/widened definition of rape in the Indian Penal Code.
"We have booked Tare under section 376 (rape) of Indian Penal Code and PCSOA. The local court remanded him in one week police custody," said a police official.
In the second case, police arrested 61-year-old shopkeeper Ashfaque Ansari yesterday for molesting a 4-year-old girl.
Yesterday, when the girl went to his shop for buying some rubber-bands, he allegedly took her inside and molested her.
The girl however managed to run out, and told her parents about the incident.
The parents were initially reluctant to go to the police, but later they registered a complaint. Ansari was arrested immediately, a police official said.
He has been booked under section 354 (molestation) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as the relevant sections of PCSOA.
