Home Cities Mumbai Mumbai: 27-year-old woman jumps off building while trying to flee rapists, say police

Mumbai: 27-year-old woman jumps off building while trying to flee rapists, say police

Allegedly raped in a flat in Pydhonie, woman escaped when rapists, now arrested, fell asleep, say police.

A 27-year-old woman who was allegedly raped by two men in a flat at Pydhonie, South Mumbai, Thursday night managed to lock up the duo in the house but fell from a fifth floor terrace in what police suspect was an attempt to escape. The woman who hails from Uttar Pradesh is being treated at J J Hospital and she is out of danger, an investigating officer said. The accused were arrested from the flat Friday. According to investigators, the woman came to the city on March 8 in search of a job after she divorced her husband.

On her way to Mumbai, she met one of the accused, Santosh Kanojia (26), on the train. Kanojia, who is also from Uttar Pradesh, had been working in Bhiwandi for the past one year. “He got talking to the victim on the train and told her that he could help her get a job. He also arranged for an accommodation for her in Bhiwandi,” said Deepak Kundal, senior inspector, Pydhonie police station. The woman started staying in the Bhiwandi house, along with Kanojia.

On Thursday, Kanojia asked her to accompany him to a friend’s place at Pydhonie in South Mumbai. He told the woman it was in connection with finding her a job. Kanojia then took the woman to the fifth floor flat at Surangi Mansion in Pydhonie that was being used by one Farooq Latif Khan (30). The flat on the terrace belongs to a Bandra-based family trading in textile material.

Khan had been employed by them and given the responsibility of getting textile material from their shop and store those in the flat, an officer said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone II) Dyaneshwar Chavan said that Santosh and Farooq raped the woman in the flat. According to sources, the two men were under the influence of alcohol.

“After raping her the duo went off to sleep. The victim, too, pretended to sleep. But soon, she got up, tiptoed to the door leading to the terrace and then locked the door from outside,” Chavan said.

The woman later realised that the staircase was on the other end of the room and she had locked herself out in the terrace. The police suspect that the woman slipped or jumped off the terrace of the five storey building to escape.

She fell in a narrow drain between two buildings. A neighbour on the fourth floor of the building said: “Around 3.30am, we heard a woman’s voice. She was shouting ‘Mohammad Amir (suspected to be her son’s name), please save me.’ My two daughters and I woke up with the scream. Before we could reach the window, we heard the sound of her falling from the building. Her dupatta was stuck on our window grill. We were petrified to even look down.”

The neighbours then locked up the door of the fifth floor flat from outside and contacted Pydhonie police. On Friday, the police broke open the main door of the flat, along with a door leading to the hall which had been locked from the inside by the two accused. They were later arrested on charges of rape.

The woman was taken to J J Hospital. “Her fall was broken by a ledge on the third floor and hence she did not land on the ground directly. She is out of danger. We have recorded her statement,” an officer said.

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