Two Navy men held for stalking girl in Colaba

Mumbai: The Colaba police had arrested two Navy men — Sandeep Malik (27) and Ankit Malik (21), who are sailors (class 3), for allegedly stalking a 20-year-old woman on Friday. Sandeep and Ankit, who are posted at the Naval Dockyard at Colaba in south Mumbai, had allegedly stared at the complainant and also stalked her for some distance. After the woman confronted them, the sailors allegedly remained defiant, asking her “whether they did not even have the liberty to look at somebody”. The duo was handed over to the police by locals who were part of a procession in which the victim was also participating.

The police has booked the two sailors under section 354(d) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) related to stalking. However, the accused were granted bail by a local court on Saturday.

According to Vijay Dhopavkar, the senior police inspector of Colaba police station, the incident took place on Friday evening near Cooperage ground in Colaba. The complainant stated that while participating in a procession held for celebrating Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, the two Navy men, dressed in civil clothes, saw her and stared at her constantly for a couple of minutes near the ground. When the procession moved ahead, the two accused men followed her, while maintaining a distance, but kept hovering around her.

Mr Dhopavkar added that when the woman confronted the two accused men, they misbehaved with her on the road, following which the crowd thrashed the two Navy men. In the scuffle, one of the accused, Ankit, tried to escape but was caught by the locals and handed over to the Colaba police station along with other accused. The police then arrested Sandeep and Ankit for stalking the complainant.

Speaking to The Asian Age, Manoj Kumar Sharma, Deputy Commissioner of Police Zone-1 said, “The two men attached to the Naval Dockyard in Colaba were arrested on Friday night for allegedly stalking a 20-year-old woman.