Mumbai: Auto driver arrested after college student complains

The police identified the auto driver as Ashok Kharvi (49) and arrested him. (File)

The Mumbai Police arrested an auto driver on Monday for allegedly masturbating while ferrying a college student to her college on Saturday morning. A video of the incident shared by the student on Instagram had gone viral, and was shared with the Mumbai Police on Twitter.

The 18-year-old student had hailed the autorickshaw at 7.30 am near her home to reach her college. According to a post on her Instagram account, a few minutes into the ride, the driver began to stare at her in the rear-view mirror and masturbate while driving the vehicle.

“At first, I didn’t realise it, but within one minute I knew what he was doing. At one point, I literally had to cover myself with my bag,” she wrote. The student asked the driver to stop the vehicle, but he insisted on dropping her to her destination, police said.

“I’d like to say that in my college, students are not allowed to wear ripped (torn) jeans. So I don’t think there was any point of inappropriate clothing or anything. I wasn’t roaming late at night, it was 7.30 in the morning,” she added in her post. She had also mentioned the vehicle’s registration number.

On Sunday evening, an Instagram user shared screenshots of the student’s post and tagged the Mumbai Police on Twitter. The police reached out to the student and recorded her statement. A case was then registered at Goregaon police station.

A tweet is all it took for Goregaon police to swing into action. An auto rickshaw driver seen sexually harassing a college student in a video she shot, is now under arrest & awaits a much deserved ride on the course of law #WomenSecurity pic.twitter.com/Lf1eTrCgoG

— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) March 2, 2020

The police identified the driver as Ashok Kharvi (49) and arrested him.