Mumbai: Thirst forced the accused in the Swargate bus rape case to leave the field he was hiding in and approach a house to seek water, but the owner, brother of a police constable, promptly alerted the police teams who were on his trail, leading to the arrest, officials said Friday.
Dattatray Ramdas Gade (37), who was on the run since Tuesday morning, was nabbed around Thursday midnight from his native village Gunat in Shirur tehsil of Pune district. A court on Friday remanded him in police custody till March 12.
A ligature mark was found on his neck, and as per the preliminary probe, he tried to hang himself from a tree in the field in which he was hiding for two days, but the rope snapped and the suicide attempt failed, officials said.
Police had pressed into service sniffer dogs and drones with thermal image cameras to hunt for him after realizing that he was probably hiding in the fields, but finally human intelligence proved most helpful, said an official.
As the police surrounded the field, Gade too was observing them from his hiding place, he said.
After darkness fell, the search operation was halted.
Unable to control the thirst, the accused stepped out of the field around 9.30 pm on Thursday, and approached a nearby house to request for water.
The house owner happened to be the brother of a policeman serving with Pune police, a senior official told PTI.
The family did give a bottle of water to Gade, but the owner then immediately called his brother, who contacted his seniors. The search was resumed, and finally the accused was captured.
Besides darkness, the presence of leopards — who are known to take shelter in sugarcane fields — in Shirur area was one of the factors that made the operation more challenging, said another official.
Gade, a history-sheeter, fled to his native place after allegedly sexually assaulting a 26-year-old woman inside a state transport bus at Swargate bus station in Pune city in the early hours of Tuesday.
He is named in half a dozen cases including theft, robbery and chain-snatching in Pune and Ahilyanagar districts. He was out on bail since 2019.
PTI
