Mumbai : Tech-savvy mother uses Instagram to nab daughter’s molester

A 15-year-old boy had the guts to slide into his classmate’s direct messages on Instagram a day after he forced himself on her.  He went on to send her a slew of sexual messages, which happened to be opened  by the survivor’s mother who was left aghast on reading the messages. The disturbed mother then posed as her daughter to get the truth out of the accused which eventually led to his detention.

Both the accused and the survivor were classmates in a south Mumbai school. The incident took place on July 21 when the girl received a call from the accused’s sister, who also studied in the same class. The sister of the accused told  her that a bunch of their classmates were meeting at her house to resolve some dispute. As soon as the survivor got there, she realised that the accused’s parents were not home while his sister too left the house on the pretext of having dinner with relatives.

The girl’s mother called to ask why she was late at around 8:45 pm after which the survivor returned home. “When my daughter came back from meeting her classmate, she said she had a head ache and went to bed without dinner. That is when I realised something was wrong,” the mother informed the police.

The day after the incident, a stream of messages poured in on the girl’s Instagram, which was open on her mother’s phone. The mother’s concern grew when she saw that the accused was sending her obscene messages. She then posed as her daughter and replied to the messages in an attempt to extract further information. She took screenshots and print-outs of the DMs and confronted her daughter upon which it was revealed that the accused had hugged and tried to kiss her forcefully, and although she tried to push him away, he forced himself on her. The girl’s mother then called up the accused and made him confess his crime to his mother. After the two mothers spoke on the phone the boy’s mother asked for forgiveness and said she had taken his phone away.

The incident caused severe trauma to the girl and effected her health too. Two days later on July 23, the mother of the victim told her husband about the incident. For the next couple of days the girl refused to go to school out of fear and when she finally went back on July 26, she said her classmates looked at her differently. The next day her parents met the school principal in order to assure that the ordeal did not repeat in the future. The class teacher confirmed that the survivor seemed depressed and had not been eating. The accused’s parents were then summoned by the principal upon which the father claimed he was out of station and unaware of what had happened. The principal did not allow the accused to attend school till his parents arrived.

On July 31, the girl’s parents took her to a counsellor during which the boy’s parents pleaded the girl’s parents not to file a case. They eventually registered an FIR with the DB Marg police on August 3, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the IT Act. “A case was filed under POCSO and IT Act, and the minor was sent to a children’s correction home,” confirmed senior police inspector, Suryakant Banger, DB Marg police.

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