Mumbai:
Displaying rare courage and resilience, the 27-year-old Spanish woman who was raped at her Bandra apartment on Monday, has given a more graphic account to cops of what transpired during those horrific 45 minutes. Police officials said the victim was still perceptibly traumatised, but she kept repeating that she wanted justice.
Cops said the woman has been cooperating with the investigation and she will now be called for an identification parade to pick out the culprit. Meanwhile, Bandra police presented the accused Mohammed Ismail Ansari alias Badshah - dressed in a burkha from head to toe - in court around 6.30 pm yesterday.
He was whisked inside by the constables who made him stand in front of the magistrate in court number 12. The judge asked the men to uncover his face after which he asked Ansari whether he was guilty of the charges. Ansari replied in the negative.
The public prosecutor argued that the accused was a hardened criminal and police needed his judicial custody for the identification parade as the victim has expressed the wish to return to her country within four days. Subsequently, Ansari was remanded in judicial custody for two days.
Bandra police officers investigating the rape-cum-robbery case have recovered a purple shirt, similar to the one described by the victim in the FIR, from the accused's residence.
The woman had told the police that the offender, who had entered into her house on the third floor of Perridot building, was wearing a purple shirt and blue jeans.
Hours after the crime was reported, cops reached Ansari's Reay Road accommodation on Monday. During their probe they found out that the accused had not returned home on Sunday night. Informers also told the officers that they had seen Ansari in Bandra barely hours before the crime. Following this, the accused was arrested.
"The victim had said that the accused's shirt had a tear on the right shoulder. We are trying to ascertain whether or not the shirt we have recovered is the same one," said an officer from Bandra police station.
The officers added that Ansari had entered the victim's house carrying a mobile phone and Rs 5,000 in cash that he had looted from a senior citizen's residence at Ambar Apartments. This he stuffed inside a pillow cover. Apart from raping her, he also grabbed the Spanish woman's camera, 5 euros, 30 GB pounds, Rs 100, gold-plated earrings and a Titan watch. He also squeezed the victim's nightdress into a pocket of his trousers and then fled through the window.
Cops are now trying to recover the stolen booty from the accused, who, they say, has not been cooperating with the investigations and has been frequently changing his statement. "After the ID parade we will continue the search for the loot," said the officer.
Ansari has been booked under sections 452 (house trespass), 392 (robbery), 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural sex) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC. Another FIR for robbery and house trespass at Ambar apartments has also been registered against him.