Auto driver held for kidnapping girl in a bid to molest her in Maharashtra

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Thane: An auto-rickshaw driver was arrested for allegedly kidnapping a teenaged girl with an intention to molest her here in Maharashtra, police said.

The victim said in her complaint that while she was on way to her school in Kalyan town last Saturday, the accused, Santosh Garud, offered her a lift in his vehicle.

When she boarded the auto-rickshaw, the accused drove the vehicle to an isolated place, an official at the Thane rural police control room said Tuesday.

The girl raised an alarm and jumped out of the auto- rickshaw. In the process, she also received injuries, he said.

While the girl was crying near a petrol pump, the accused came there again, drove the teenager back to her locality and warned her not to tell anybody about the incident, the official said.

The girl later informed her mother about the incident and both of them went to the Kalyan taluka police and lodged a complaint against the accused on Sunday.

In her complaint, the girl said she feared that the man wanted to molest her, the official said.

Based on the complaint, the accused was arrested Tuesday and booked under IPC sections 354 (molestation), 363 (kidnapping), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 504 (intentional insult with an intent to provoke breach of peace) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he added.