Mumbai: Anil Shinde, who was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 25-year-old airhostess, on Tuesday told police that he and his two friends, who also impersonate as transgender persons, would hire autorickshaws to various residential societies every day seeking alms. They preferred travelling by auto because of fear of harassment on local trains, he said.Each of them earn around Rs 1,000 daily, police said.On Tuesday morning, Shinde and two friends zeroed in on Powai and Marol locality. “They hired an autorickshaw from Kalwa and got down in between Marol and Powai. The three proceeded in different directions after asking the auto driver to wait for their return.At 12.20pm, Shinde trespassed into the building in Powai where the airhostess lives as a paying guest in the flat of an 85-year-old widow by entering through an unmanned gate. “A security guard stationed at another gate followed Shinde. The guard left when the flat owner allowed him in. She then introduced Shinde to the airhostess and asked him to ‘cure her problem’, saying her husband was suffering from dengue and was hospitalised. He took the airhostess to her bedroom and committed the offence. Before leaving, Shinde collected Rs 200 from the airhostess and Rs 100 from the senior citizen as dakshina,” said a police officer.Shinde left the flat at 12.50 pm and met his two friends at Marol at 1.30pm and left for their respective homes in Kalwa in the same rickshaw and shared Rs1200 rickshaw fare equally. His two colleagues claimed they were unaware about the crime he had committed,” said a police officer.The airhostess approached the police around 11pm on Tuesday. An FIR was registered and DCP (West Zone-3) Datta Nalawade supervised a team of senior inspector A S Sawant, inspector Sushant Bandgar, ub-inspectors Ramchandra Pinjarkar, Sandeep Patil, and staff to trace the accused. Shinde was arrested from his hutment at Golai Nagar in Kalwa’s Kharegaon locality at 4am, where he was found with his wife and two children. “He is in custody till August 24,” said Pinjarkar.
