Mumbai:
For most of last fortnight, a 19-year-old girl who resides with her parents in Charkop, had been showered with anonymous gift parcels.
But it ceased to be an occasion for thrill right after she unwrapped the first present. For, every time she opened them, she invariably found vulgar items like lingerie and sex toys.
Ending the embarrassment and harassment for her family yesterday, cops disclosed the 21-year-old man who was the secret presenter of the perverted gifts. Apparently, he had been smitten with the girl.
According to the police officers investigating the case, the accused identified as Suraj Sagar, began harassing the girl two weeks ago.
He would call up the girl's father on his cell phone to abuse him and send him offensive text messages. To the girl, he sent the unsigned gift parcels containing obscene items. A resident of Charkop, he knew the girl through a common friend.
Last Saturday, fed up of the nameless stalker, the victim's father approached the Charkop police with the gift items the accused had couriered to the girl's house, and lodged a complaint.
"Sagar used to call up a restaurant near the girl's house and order expensive meals to be delivered to her address. When the parcel reached her house, her father would end up paying bills worth thousands of rupees," said Pramod Toradmal, assistant police inspector from Charkop police station.
After the complaint, cops started with tracing the number from which the calls were made to the complainant. They located it to a SIM belonging to a girl in a college in Malad. "We questioned the girl and learnt that she had lost that phone.
She had even filed a complaint. We then began tracing the boys in her group who were suspected of robbing the phone or slyly removing the SIM card and making the offensive calls," said Toradmal.
Their conjecture was correct. After questioning a 17-year-old boy, the police found that he had helped Sagar acquire the SIM card and make the calls.
The minor, who stayed opposite the victim's house and knew both the girls, used to inform Sagar about the movements of the police and the girl. He was aided by an accomplice, also his age, and was detained thereafter.
"Sagar knew the girl. They stayed in the same locality. He simply wanted to harass her. He never tried to call her as she would have recognised his voice," said Toradmal.
"We have arrested all the three involved in the crime under Section 509 (for word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and Section 504 (for intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code.
As two of them are minors, they have been sent to the children's remand home. Sagar would be presented in court tomorrow," said Toradmal.