Nothing to do with shelter home: RPF constable accused of rape, molestation

On Monday, Pawar and a co-accused were produced before a special judge seeking extention of their custodial remand. The judge sent Pawar to GRP’s custody till December 21.

The remamd report the police submitted before the court on Monday said they have come across some unusual money deposits in Pawar’s son’s bank account and needed to probe the money trail further.

Mahesh Devikar, deputy superintendent of police (GRP), said, “During the course of investigation, we found about Rs 9.70 lakh was deposited in Pawar’s son’s account in the last one year. Pawar’s son is a student and has no source of income. We need to investigate if the amount is anyway linked to Pawar’s illegal exortion operations through the shelter home.”

The DSP said the amounts deposited at a time to the bank account ranged between 4,000 and Rs 10,000.
According to police, Pawar said he had nothing to do with the operations of the shelter home.
“During interrogation, he distanced himself from the shelter home’s operation. We have other ways to prove that he was a continuous presence there,” said Devikar.

Officers investigating the case said that the shelter home, although registered under Pawar’s brother-in-law Premdas Rathod’s name through NGO Siddharth Multipurpose Society, was de-facto controlled by Pawar.

Speaking to The Indian Express last month, Rathod had said he was not even aware about the shelter’s existence and that the documents used to register the NGO were obtained by Pawar from him on some other pretext.

Akshay Chandane, another person arrested a few days ago, was granted judicial custody by the court.

Chandane is a friend of arrested accused Karan Rathod, who as per police was a manager at the shelter home, and on the latter’s request, had recieved Rs 6,000 in his account from a friend of a boy, who had come with the minor girl from Chhattisgarh to Pune, in September this year.