The Maharashtra: Indian Youth Congress workers protested outside Lashkar Police Station in Pune where accused Dattatray Ramdas Gade has been kept after his arrest. The workers raised slogans and demanded death sentence for the guilty as well as resignation by the Home Minister of the state, CM Devendra Fadnavis. Earlier, today the accused was detained in Maharashtra's Shirur.
Gade would often be seen around the bus station where he assaulted the woman on Tuesday. He would introduce himself as a policeman to people, as per sources. He did the same with the woman he attacked, according to the sources.Gade has been named in half a dozen cases of theft, robbery and chain-snatching in Pune and Ahilyanagar district. He has been out on bail since 2019 in one of the cases.
It emerged during police investigation that he had bought a car on loan in 2019. He would operate the vehicle as a taxi on the Pune-Ahilyanagar route. He would allegedly offer to drop heavily-adorned elderly women home, take them to a deserted place near the highway and rob them on knifepoint. He would then abandon them at the spot and flee with their belongings.Gade's family is very poor, living in a concrete house with a thatched roof in the Gunat village, 72 kilometres from Pune. His parents work on their agricultural land to fend for themselves. Among his family in the village are his brother, wife and young children.
As per villagers in Gunat, Gade started the liquor and taxi businesses to earn quick money.Questions were also raised about Gade's picture appearing on a banner featuring Ashok Pawar, former MLA of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP). He was allegedly working for the leader during the Assembly election campaign last year. Gade unsuccessfully contested for a local post in Gunat village.