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Journalism of Courage
Fourteen men who were arrested for molesting two women on January 1 outside a hotel in Juhu were on Friday produced in a magistrate’s court in Andheri, where they were granted bail on a surety of Rs 10,000 each. Since the accused were yet to get copies of the bail order, they will furnish the surety amount on Saturday, said lawyers. Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil said the state would appeal against the bail in the High Court.
Those arrested are Kunal Jadhav (20), Amit Kapoor (26), Sebastian D’Silva (18), Swapnil Mandhre (21), Sandeep Panchal (23), Manoj Panchal (21), Vaibhav Marathe (19), Nilesh Bhagyatkar (19), Derek Jadhav (19), Siddharth Singh (19), Sudhir Naikwade (21) Ajay Marathe (18), Ravindra Shukla (27) and Sandeep Shukla (19).
While Ravindra Shukla runs a sandwich stall at Vile Parle and is a resident of Kandivli, his cousin Sandeep Shukla lives in Vile Parle (East). The remaining 12 are residents of Siddhivinayak Society on Shraddhanand Road in Vile Parle (East).
Announcing the arrests, Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) K L Prasad had earlier said that one of the 14 had surrendered himself. However, at the Andheri magistrate’s court on Friday, even as the youngsters were first remanded to judicial custody and then applied for bail, the families of the 12 who belong to Siddhivinayak Society claimed that they had surrendered of their own accord.
Manohar Jadhav, the father of Derek Jadhav, said: “These kids had been enjoying their New Year Eve on the terrace of Siddhivinayak Society. Later, they went to Juhu beach to watch the celebrations and while returning, they saw a mob near Marriot.”
According to Jadhav, four of them rushed forward to check what the commotion was about and two of them, Nilesh Bhagyatkar and Sudhir Naikwade, were captured in photographs shot by two journalists at the spot.
At about 1.45 am on January 1, two couples leaving the J W Marriott were caught in an unruly mob of men. The two women were molested for close to 10 minutes until the photographers at the spot alerted a passing traffic police van. After waiting over 24 hours to register a case, the police finally launched a hunt for the culprits, announcing a reward for information on those in the photographs.
The 14 arrested late Thursday have been charged under Sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 323, 354, 341, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act. Deputy Commissioner of Police K M Prasanna said, “More arrests will be made in the case.”
Defence lawyer Nagesh Joshi, who appeared for the 14 accused, said the prosecution could not satisfy the court on why they needed police custody. “The court felt that there was no need for arguing the case at this stage,” he added.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief minister R R Patil on Friday said the state would urge the Centre to make Section 354 of the IPC non-bailable.
