Court sends man accused of raping woman inside bus in Pune to police custody till March 12

Pune: A court on Friday sent a 37-year-old man accused of raping a woman inside an empty parked state transport bus at Swargate depot in Pune city to police custody till March 12.

The accused, Dattatray Ramdas Gade, was nabbed from a paddy field following an extensive search operation carried out with the help of drones and sniffer dogs around midnight on Thursday in Shirur tehsil of Pune district.

He was formally arrested and produced before the Pune Sessions Court amid heavy police security.

The police submitted a remand application to the court and sought Gade's custody for 14 days.

They told the court the accused engaged the 26-year-old victim in conversation at the Swargate terminus on Tuesday morning, calling her 'didi' (sister) and took her to an empty 'Shiv Shahi' bus parked in the depot premises and raped her.

Gade, who faces half a dozen criminal cases in Pune and Ahilyanagar districts, is clearly seen in the CCTV footage of the bus terminus on the day of the incident, according to the police. The data of the mobile phone he was using was yet to be recovered, they informed the court. The police stated that out of the half a dozen cases registered against Gade, women are complainants in five of them.

On the other side, advocate Wajid Khan, appearing for the accused, told the court his client was facing a media trial and claimed the complainant herself went inside the bus.

"A physical relationship was established (between them) with mutual consent," Khan told the court. The court, after listening to both sides, remanded Gade to police custody till March 12.