MUMBAI: A man was recently arrested for kidnapping and sexually abusing women by promising them modeling assignments.
The accused, Mandhatta Singh Rathod, zeroed in on his victims after going through their profiles on social networking sites. He would get aspiring models to meet coordinators but would later take them to hotels in Delhi and rape them.
Rathod, who is wanted in more than 20 such cases in Delhi, Rajasthan, Mumbai and Thane, was picked up in Delhi. Three girls, including an Oshiwara resident, were rescued.
Rathod approached the Oshiwara victim, a model, on a social networking website and convinced her to accompany him to Delhi. The victim later learnt that there were several cases of fraud registered against Rathod. The accused told her that since he was a wanted accused, he could name her as co-accused if arrested. Rathod also threatened to post some compromising photographs of the model on the internet. “They kept moving from one place to another. Rathod told the model not to communicate with her mother,” said a senior police officer. “When the model’s mother visited the Delhi hotel, she learnt that her daughter had left after leaving behind her baggage. She returned to Mumbai and filed a kidnapping complaint at Oshiwara police station last month,” he added.
“During investigations we learnt that Rathod had cheated a bank. We were tracking his movements and nabbed him recently,” said Dilip Rupawate, senior inspector of the Oshiwara police station.
