Pune:
A 26-year-old woman was raped inside a bus early Tuesday morning – while it was parked in the middle of Pune’s busy Swargate Bus Stand and around 100 metres from a police station.
The accused has been named as Dattatraya Ramdas – he was identified through a CCTV feed – but has not yet been arrested. The police have formed eight special teams, and deployed a canine sniffer unit, to track him down. Ramdas, 36, already has a criminal record.
The bus in which the young woman – a domestic worker travelling to her home village of Phaltan in Satara district – was raped has been vandalised, the police also said.
According to the police, the crime took place sometime between 5.45am and 6.30am.
A preliminary scan of CCTV footage shows the alleged rapist talking to the woman, who said Ramdas addressed her as ‘didi’, or ‘sister’. According to the woman, he asked after her destination and told her the parked vehicle – in which there were no lights – would take her there.
The woman said the man led her to the bus and, when she hesitated, pointing out the lights were not on, he told her the other passengers were sleeping and that was why it was dark.
She said that when she entered the bus, he jumped in, locked the door, and raped her.
After that she boarded a second bus – on which her friend was travelling – and said she had been raped. The friend immediately told the woman to report the matter to the cops.
The police said they had equally immediately filed a complaint and accessed the CCTV footage, which jumpstarted their investigation, which will include inquiries into how and why the bus depot management allowed this to happen in their premises and on their bus.
The bus stand is one of the largest run by the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation.
Predictably, the rape has drawn sharp reactions from the opposition, which has blamed Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis – who also controls the Home Department – for failing to control rising crime in the Pune region.
Maharashtra Congress chief Harshwardhan Sapkal claimed incidents of rape were on rise in the state and referenced the horrific Nirbhaya incident in Delhi in 2012. He also slammed the BJP-led government in the state for focusing on ‘freebies’ for women at the cost of their safety.
#WATCH | Pune, Maharashtra: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Vasant More along with other party leaders, holds a protest at the Swargate bus stand over the alleged rape of a 26-year-old woman. pic.twitter.com/du9aQCMJyL
— ANI (@ANI) February 26, 2025
“When the Nirbhaya gangrape took place in Delhi… the people changed the regime (voting out the Congress and giving power to the AAP). You (the BJP) promote schemes for women that provide financial aid… but then ignore the basic issues of the people,” he said.
The NCP’s Supriya Sule, whose party faction is allied with the Congress, was critical of a rape in an area that is supposed to be routinely patrolled by the cops. “.. shows that anti-social elements do not have any fear of law. The home department has failed to curb crime in Pune.”
And the Shiv Sena (the faction led by ex-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who is allied with both the Congress and Ms Sule’s NCP) has staged a protest at the bus stand.
A video shared by news agency ANI showed the Sena’s Vasant More and other leaders inside the bus stand’s office – which has had its window smashed in.
With input from agencies