Bengaluru: Interesting details have emerged regarding the arrest of the accused in the Bengaluru molestation case of two women. Police nabbed the accused, Santosh Daniel, 10 days after the incident, in Kerala, and it has emerged that his home guard girlfriend helped him hide.
After the CCTV footage of the incident went viral, it became a major challenge for the police department to crack the case quickly.
Sources reveal that the accused was in a live-in relationship with the female home guard. Daniel had sexually harassed two young women and then escaped — later seen enjoying life in Kerala. The police have expressed shock over the home guard supporting the accused even after knowing about his act of molestation.
Sources reveal that shockingly, the molester was guided by his lover home guard on how to avoid the police after the incident.
Daniel was found having a good time at a resort in Kerala along with the female home guard at the time of arrest.
To confuse the police, the accused kept moving across four to five jurisdictional limits in Bengaluru. He used a Dio scooter and rode through the lanes of Suddguntepalya, Tilaknagar, and MICO Layout police station limits.
The police tracked his movements and launched a search operation. Just when they thought he was still in Bengaluru, he escaped to Kerala. He fled to Kerala with the female home guard from the Bellandur police station.
Though she was married and had a child, the home guard had stayed away from her husband for Daniel, according to sources. She had been in a live-in relationship with Santosh for three years. The home guard allegedly helped Daniel escape. She even accompanied him to Kerala. Initially, the couple went to Hosur, in Tamil Nadu, located close to Bengaluru.
Upon realising that the police were on their trail, they abandoned the bike in Hosur and fled to Salem. From Salem, they moved on to Kerala.
Police sources stated that the home guard had devised a master plan to avoid detection by police. She advised Daniel not to use his mobile phone. She also suggested folding the scooter’s number plate so it wouldn’t be visible.
When his movements could not be tracked, the special police teams continued their investigation in other directions. The accused, Daniel, was finally caught due to his traffic violation records. The police, who had gone through around 1,000 CCTV footage, identified him through a traffic violation.
They traced the number plate of a bike found at the crime scene, which led them to the suspect. It was the bike that eventually revealed Daniel’s identity. In the initial days of the investigation, the police traced the accused by tracking his bike.
The police sought help from the transport department during the process.
The Southeast Division police wrote to the transport department regarding the Dio scooter. They inquired about how many Dio scooters of that colour were registered in the city. With help from the transport department, the police got more clues about the accused.
Using the vehicle number, they traced Daniel’s home address. The police knocked on the door of Daniel’s house in Galburga Colony, Jayanagar. That’s when they found out that the accused was on the run. Karnataka Police arrested the accused on April 14.
Currently, Daniel is in police custody and being intensely interrogated. The police department has officially not revealed any details about the female home guard yet.
According to the police, they examined over 1,600 CCTV footage clips to track down the accused. Two special teams were formed, and based on technical leads, they searched for him in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
The investigation began based on a complaint filed by a resident, Lokesh Gowda.
A video showing two young women being targeted by the accused in the early hours in a residential locality went viral on social media. The 17-second video showed two women walking down a deserted street flanked by houses on both sides. A tall, well-built man approaches them from behind, pushes one of the women aside, sexually harasses the other, and then escapes. The video also captures the visibly shaken women standing briefly to catch their breath before quickly leaving the scene.
The incident occurred at around 2 a.m. on April 4 in the jurisdiction of the Sadduguntepalya police station. The video went viral on April 6.
(IANS)
