Mumbai Police arrests French nationalist for raping three-year-old girl

A week after the Bombay High Court lambasted the Mumbai Police for dereliction of duty while investigating a case of sexual abuse of three-year-old girl, the city police arrested a French nationalist in connection with the case.

Deputy commissioner of police (zone X) Navinchandra Reddy, confirmed the arrest of the French nationalist but refused to reveal any details.

A press release issued by Meghwadi division assistant commissioner of police read that the department has arrested a 56-year-old French national, a trustee of the school, in connection to the sexual abuse case. The accused was produced before court in Dindoshi on Tuesday.

According to a senior officer of the Mumbai Police, the girl had alleged the trustee of the school and a woman teacher had sexually abused her in school campus. The teacher is yet to be arrested. Police prior to the formal arrest had carried out polygraph test on the accused and had recorded statements of at least 80 people from the school. The three--year-old girl had identified her perpetrators from the photographs on the school website.

A bench of Justices Ranjit More and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi had asked the Mumbai Police reasons for not making arrests despite the victim identified her perpetrators on October 31. The case was registered against the trustee and a school teacher in January by the minor’s mother. She in the complaint had mentioned that her daughter was sexually abused in several occasions and she learnt about the incident after she noticed that the minor was unable to walk and it properly.  

An FIR under relevant Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections and POSCO Act. has been registered with the MIDC police station.