Mumbai, Jan. 2: G.S. Bawa, the owner of Hotel Bawa International, is likely to be questioned in connection with the alleged rape of a foreigner who said she was drugged at the hotel’s pub before she was assaulted by two men.
Joint commissioner of police (law and order) Arup Patnaik said: “I agree that there are too many unanswered questions in this case. The two accused arrested on Saturday are being interrogated through the day. We will question Bawa also in this connection.”
Bawa had apparently invited the victim to his hotel for dinner and asked her to visit the Avalon pub on the ground floor where she bumped into the alleged rapists.
“There were three-four people with Bawa when my client went to the hotel for dinner on his invitation. After dinner, she told him that she is getting bored. Bawa asked her to spend time at the ground-floor pub of the hotel where she met the alleged rapists. She did not know them. They were complete strangers,” the victim’s lawyer, Falguni Bramhabhatt, said.
On Saturday night, the Vile Parle police arrested a model coordinator-cum-casting agent, Sunil Morepani, and wine shop owner Suresh Krishnani from Ulhasnagar in neighbouring Thane district. Both are believed to be regulars at the Avalon pub.
Police sources said after midnight on December 27, the two accused had laced the woman’s drink with an unknown substance and offered to drop her home after she became drowsy. They instead drove her to two different hotels in Kalyan, a few kilometres from Ulhasnagar, and repeatedly raped her on December 28.
The victim tried to escape from the hotels, but was beaten up with a leather belt before she was dropped off at Andheri’s Lokhandwala Complex in a car. The car has been traced.
Deputy commissioner Shashikant Shinde said: “The FIR named the two suspects as Rahul and Aditya M, but there is no mistaken identity involved. They have given these fake names to the rape victim.”
The police are likely to question the owners of the two hotels in Kalyan where the woman was alleged to have been taken.
