New Delhi: A 26-year-old “film editor and casting director” was arrested for assaulting an 18-year-old girl after she refused physical intimacy. The Mumbai-based casting director fled to Surat in Gujarat’s surat, thinking that the girl had died after he broke her skull.
The accused, Deepak Malakar, a resident of Bihar, was arrested on Monday, three days after he fled from Mumbai after the August 11 incident. After the assault, the victim lost consciousness. Believing she is dead, Malakar, who claims he is a film editor and casting director, ran away. The teenager, however, later regained consciousness and reached for help, according to a report in Times of India.
The victim, a first-year college student, is now recuperating in hospital. She was in the ICU for two days.
The two had reportedly become friends on Facebook last year. Around two months ago, Malakar approached the victim’s parents with a marriage proposal for her. Her parents agreed to it and let the man stay at their 1-BHK flat. While he was staying there, he reported tried to get physically intimate with the girl, who told him that she wanted to complete her studies and try her luck in the Hindi film industry before marrying him, TOI reported police as saying.
This angered the accused, who took the girl to his friend’s flat in Versova on August 11 and tried to sexually assault her.
“When she resisted, he banged her head to the wall and rained blows on her face till she collapsed. Assuming that she was dead, he panicked, locked the flat from outside, and fled the city,” said the officer as per the TOI report.
However, after an hour, the victim regained consciousness and screamed for help. This alerted the neighbours, who came to her rescue and called the police.
Malakar has reportedly confessed to police that he wanted to kill the victim because she had rejected his advances.
“The accused had switched off his phone, but was communicating with his friends by making calls from local booths and pedestrians’ phones in Surat. Finally, the ATM withdrawals helped us track down his location on Monday,” said the officer.
Police have filed a case under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 342 (wrongful confinement), 354 (outrage modesty), and 354 (D) (stalking) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against Malakar.
