Mumbai: Man held for spitting on Manipuri woman in Kalina

Over the last two weeks, police scanned footage from over 120 government and private CCTV cameras between Kurla and Goregaon in an attempt to identify the motorist. (Express photo/Pradip Das)

A scooter rider, who allegedly spat at a Manipuri woman in Kalina earlier this month, was identified and arrested by the police on Friday.

The incident took place on April 6 when the 25-year-old woman was walking in Geeta Vihar. However, she was unable to note down the vehicle’s license plate number. In her complaint, she had also expressed fears of being exposed to COVID-19.

Over the last two weeks, police scanned footage from over 120 government and private CCTV cameras between Kurla and Goregaon in an attempt to identify the motorist.

However, the CCTV footage showed the motorist speaking over the phone while riding past Air India Colony in Kalina.

The police then analysed over 1.2 lakh phone numbers found active in the area at the time of the incident and zeroed in on 50 of those. Finally, the cops narrowed down the list to a phone number found active both at Geeta Vihar and Air India Colony around the time that the scooter was seen to have passed by both locations.

The phone number was found to belong to 23-year-old Kurla West resident Mohammad Amir Khan.

A senior police official said they are trying to establish whether the spitting act on the Manipuri woman was deliberate or not.

“The accused claims that he did not mean to spit at the woman and that it was a mistake. But the CCTV analysis of the incident indicates that he could have avoided spitting when he was riding past the woman. We are interrogating him further,” the official said.

Khan was booked under the Indian Penal Code for committing a malignant act likely to cause the spread of a deadly infection and assaulting a person without being provoked, the police said.