Five navy men held for molesting woman in Mumbai

Five Indian Navy men have been arrested for allegedly molesting a young female banker before attacking her husband in a pub in suburban Khar in Mumbai, the police said on Monday.

The five accused, arrested from suburban Borivali in the early hours on Sunday, were identified as Maheshwar Mahendra Singh, 26, Ashish Jaikishan, 29, Tirthnath Dilpanath, 25, Sham Bhandare, 29, and Chandan Mishra, 26.

All of them are class IV personnel with the Indian Navy, posted at the electronics department of the Naval Dockyard, the Khar police said. The accused were booked for unlawful assembly, rioting, molestation and wrongful constraint. They were produced before a holiday court and remanded in police custody till April 29, the police said.

According to police, one of the culprits had made lewd remarks at the woman because of which a heated argument ensued between the group and her husband. The accused punched the victim's husband and molested her when the bouncers at the pub intervened and threw the group out of the pub.

The fuming men waited outside until the pub shut down and began chasing the victim while she was travelling in an autorickshaw towards Borivali. The rattled victim then dialed Mumbai police helpline number.

The police directed the victim to tell the autorickshaw driver to take the vehicle towards Kasturba Marg police station and accordingly, a trap was laid and the accused were intercepted under the Borivali flyover, police said.

They were taken into custody and the victim's statement was recorded. As the pub falls under the jurisdiction of Khar police station, the first information report was transferred to Khar by the Kasturba Marg police.