MUMBAI: A 27-year-old engineer was

and

for two-and-a-half months by an

, who also tonsured her head after she refused to marry him. The woman finally managed to escape to a relative’s house in Pune last week and lodged a complaint, after which the accused, Sayyed Amir Hussain alias Seroj Khan (27), was arrested from his

flat in Andheri (West) on Monday.

Police said the woman was drugged by the accused when she visited his home in mid June. The woman, who had shifted to the city from Goa last year, had allegedly befriended Hussain through a social networking site. “When she visited Hussain’s home, he offered a sweet laced with some drugs, and sexually assaulted her. When she regained consciousness, Hussain showed her mobile phone videos of him sexually assaulting her and started to blackmail her. Initially, he kept her confined to his home till June 30, during which he repeatedly raped her and also beat her with leather belt. He took away her debit card and withdrew Rs40,000 from her account,” said an officer from Oshiwara police station.

In her complaint, the woman said that Hussain let her off on June 30. “However, he kept following me. On July 3 called me and told me to reach his home else he would circulate the video of sexual assault on social media. He forced me to return to his home on July 3,” she said in her complaint.

According to police, Hussain asked her to marry him, but she refused. “The woman said that he would tie her up and gag her with a cloth and sexually assault her. He also threatened to sell her for flesh trade if she did not marry him. He tonsured her later,” a police officer said. According to the police, Hussain told her that he had targeted two other women similarly in the past.

On August 25, the woman managed to escape from Hussain’s home and reached a relative’s home in Pune. Her relatives then took her to Kothrud police station and lodged an FIR on September 1. “The case has been transferred to our counterpart at Oshiwara who are conducting further probe,” said inspector Appasaheb Shevale of Kothrud police station.

He was produced before the Andheri metropolitan court, which remanded him in police custody till September 10. Police are trying to recover the chemical used to spike the sweet given to her, besides the mobile phone in which the accused allegedly recorded the sexual assaults.

Hussain has been booked for rape (IPC section 376 ), unnatural sex/offences (section 377 ), wrongful confinement (sections 342 and 344 ), outraging modesty (354), robbery (392 ), criminal intimidation (506) and also under the IT Act.