Mumbai: After a yr-long chase, CCTV footage, victims’ accounts lead police to Qureshi

Navi Mumbai Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Tushar Doshi, said in May 2017 four molestation cases took place within the span of a month that had a similar modus operandi.

Rehan Qureshi

“Maine kuch galat kiya hai.. shayad pakde jau (I have done something wrong, I may get caught)” — This is what Rehan Qureshi had told a family member recently after he realised that the police are hot on his pursuit. While Qureshi’s fears eventually did turn out to be true, it took a crack team of Navi Mumbai police more than a year to arrest Qureshi, who lived with his mother and four brothers. While the same modus operandi used by Qureshi in most cases helped police infer that it was the same person behind all the cases under probe, the presence of another serial offender who struck around the same time as Qureshi made things difficult for the crack team.

Navi Mumbai Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Tushar Doshi, said in May 2017 four molestation cases took place within the span of a month that had a similar modus operandi.

“Firstly, the accused would tell the girls that he was sent by their father and take them to an isolated building. In all these cases, the versions of the victims was the same. Hence we formed a crack team in the crime branch comprising of 23 men, including three officers,” Doshi said.

The team then started looking at CCTV footage of the spot where the incidents took place. “The problem here was that around the same time there was another molester who was involved in three cases. After scanning through a lot of footage we identified Qureshi as the man in a blue shirt and the other molester as the one who was seen wearing a red shirt. After increased patrolling, there was a lull from May to August. However, in August the ‘blue shirted man’ became active again and molested a girl in Nerul,” Doshi said.

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The police then also began scanning cameras located around the spot where the incidents took place to see where the accused was headed.

“In some cases we found he was headed to Panvel and later we found that every time he went back to Thane. As the police were looking through the CCTV footage from railway stations, an incident took place at Nallasopara on September 13. The testimony of the victim matched the modus operandi used by the ‘blue shirted guy’,” an officer said. The accused struck again on September 20. “We began scanning the footage and found he went to Mira Road every time. We then gave ads in local Marathi newspapers with his photographs,” an officer said.

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The police then narrowed down their search to a few areas in Mira Road. “In the past the accused had targeted girls on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. Hence we had several plainclothes officers in these areas on Wednesday when we spotted Qureshi and placed him under arrest,” an officer said. During interrogation, the police found that Qureshi who has studied till class XII did his schooling from Parel before moving to Kurla, Mira Road, Navi Mumbai and back to Mira Road. He had worked at Dammam in Saudi Arabia for brief periods from 2010-2015.

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