The man accused of raping a 26-year-old woman inside a bus at Pune’s Swargate depot has been arrested in Maharashtra’s Shirur during a midnight operation following a massive manhunt, police said on Friday.
The accused, Dattatray Ramdas Gade (37), was hiding at a farm in Shirur. Since yesterday, 13 teams of Pune Police had been searching for him. Late at night, he visited someone’s house for a meal, and that person immediately alerted the police, leading to his arrest, officials said.
The police team discovered a changed shirt, which they used to provide the dog squad with Gade’s scent. The dogs led the police along his escape route. Gade hid in a sugarcane field near a canal close to his relatives’ house.
Gade allegedly raped the woman while she was waiting for a bus to Satara district at one of the platforms around 5.45 am on Tuesday. He misled her by saying that the bus for Satara had arrived at another platform.
Gade, a resident of Gunat village in Pune, has been named in half a dozen cases of theft, robbery, and chain-snatching in Pune and Ahilyanagar districts. He had been out on bail since 2019 in one of the cases.