Man held for 'molesting' Malaysian student on flight

The Bajpe police here arrested a 36-year-old man from Bangalore on Tuesday on the charge of molesting a Malaysian student on board a Mangalore-bound flight.

The victim, a student at a private dental college here, made a complaint to the police that Ankur Agarwal “molested” her throughout the journey from Bangalore to Mangalore.
Agarwal, a quality checker at a private hospital in Bangalore, was sitting next to her in the flight. He “touched her in a sexual way on the pretext of falling asleep”, she alleged.

The victim said she started crying as soon as the flight landed at the airport. When the crew enquired with her, she narrated the incident. Agarwal had alighted from the flight and left the airport by the time authorities called him back. The Bajpe police, who rushed to the spot, then detained him.

The suspect, however, denied molesting his co-passenger and claimed that he might have touched her “unintentionally” when he was “fast asleep”.

Police later arrested him under Section 354 of the IPC for assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty and produced him before the court in the evening.

A native of Uttar Pradesh, Agarwal is married and has children. He had come to Mangalore for auditing.