Mumbai, Jan. 3: Police have found pornographic video clips in the cellphone of one of the accused in the rape of a foreigner in a city hotel.
Although the video clips do not feature the 27-year-old, the police are probing if she was drugged and raped for a pornographic film.
Additional commissioner (west zone) Parambir Singh said “a few” porn video clips were found loaded on the mobile phone of Suresh Krishnani, a wine shop owner from Ulhasnagar. “The clips, however, do not feature the rape victim. We are still investigating if the accused had used their modus operandi on any other women in the past,” he said.
The police investigation has shown that the accused ? Krishnani and his friend Sunil Morepani ? had laced the foreigner’s drinks at a city pub with an unknown substance on December 27 and then taken the woman in a drugged condition to two hotels in Thane on the outskirts of Mumbai.
The police are also probing if the hotel owners ? G.S. Bawa of Hotel Bawa International, Raunak Singh of Raj Mahal hotel in Kalyan ? were “friends” of the accused. The police have been grilling Bawa since this morning.
A crucial part of the investigation, the identification parade, is also to be done.
The accused have been remanded in police custody till January 6 and are likely to be put in judicial custody.
The victim’s lawyer Falguni Bramhabhatt pointed out the police have not sealed the two hotels where the victim, who is from a business family in Durban, was raped. “The discovery of obscene video clips raise suspicions about the pornographic aspect. The police should seal the hotel rooms immediately. By not doing so, the police will only allow the hotel owners to destroy the evidence,” she said.
The woman spoke to her father today for the first time after the rape. “She told him? that she would return home only after she ensures that she gets justice. Her family has left it to the embassy to provide all assistance to her,” Bramhabhatt said.
The woman belongs to third or fourth generation migrants from India and has a Muslim name.
