BENGALURU: A 35-year-old married man’s obsession for a 20-year-old woman took a violent turn on August 24, when he abducted the woman, forcefully tied ‘mangalsutra’ and raped her at his residence in Agrahara Dasarahalli.
The accused, Santosh, who ran a laundry shop, has now has been arrested by the Magadi Road police, following a complaint by the woman’s mother, a vegetable seller, the next day.
Santosh is a father of two children, but was abandoned by his wife and children a few months ago due to his addiction to alcohol. After living with his mother for a few years, Santosh got attracted to the victim, a resident of the same area.
He along with his mother approached the victim’s mother with a marriage proposal three to four times, but the victim’s mother was vehemently against the alliance, due to Santosh’s addiction to alcohol.
According to the complaint filed by the victim’s mother, on August 24 her daughter left to her grandmother’s house at 9.30 pm to sleep there.
“My mother stays alone in a house in the same street. Every night she would go to her house to sleep and her brother would drop her. On the fateful day, as it was late, she went alone and before she could reach my mother’s house Santosh abducted her to his house,” the victim’s mother said in the complaint.
The complainant had no idea as to what happened on the previous night with her daughter.
She began to worry when her daughter did not return to the house in the morning. The victim’s mother went to her mother’s house to check on her daughter only to learn that she did not go there the previous night.
“I grew suspicious and went to Santosh’s house to find my daughter sitting and sobbing,” the victim’s mother said adding that Santosh escaped from the house after he saw her.
Recalling her ordeal, the victim told her mother that Santosh had abducted her to his house, forcefully tied ‘mangalsutra’ and repeatedly raped her. He kept saying that she was his wife now.
The victim worked as a domestic help at various houses in the area and was living with her mother and three brothers. Her father died in 2004.
A case has been booked against Santosh under Sections 362 (Abduction), 354 (Assault on a woman with the intention to outrage her modesty) and 375 (rape) of the IPC.
However, the police said that there was no involvement of the accused's mother in the crime.
