Pritesh Doshi, 24, managed to evade the police for 10 days after allegedly kidnapping and ill-treating the 13-year-old daughter of an actor-director from Oshiwara.

But he wasn't so lucky the second time. Police arrested Doshi on Tuesday night for allegedly kidnapping and raping another 13-year-old at a guesthouse in Madh.

Doshi is a known offender with 26 cases of chain-snatching registered against him.

According to the police, the second victim, a Std VIII student of an international school, was on her way to buy books along with a friend in Charkop when the accused approached her around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Doshi, son of an estate agent, told the victim that her father had been admitted to hospital.

"Doshi asked her to accompany him in an autorickshaw, offering to take her to the hospital. He then took her to a guesthouse at Madh," said senior inspector PS Gavande of Charkop police station. The friend returned home and narrated the incident to her parents.

The parents called up the victim's father, an interior decorator from Charkop, to enquire about his health. "The victim's father suspected foul play and immediately approached us to lodge a case of kidnapping," said Gavande. Even as the complaint was being lodged, the victim returned home.

The girl revealed that she had been raped, the police said. "Medical examination has confirmed rape and we have lodged a complaint of both rape and kidnapping," said Gavande.

A police team then went to the guesthouse in Madh and found that Doshi had put his original name and signature in the register.

"While checking the list of known offenders in the area, we found that Doshi was wanted in six cases of chain snatching," said Gavande. He said the 24-year-old was later arrested from his home in Malad.

While the victim told the police that she didn't know Doshi, he claimed to have met her in a pub a few months ago and said she had accompanied him voluntarily.

But the real twist in the tale came soon after when a crime branch officer from the Bandra unit, who is investigating the May 10 kidnapping of the actor-director's daughter, heard about the Charkop incident and rushed to the police station.

"The actors daughter had told us that her abductor spoke in broken English. Also, the modus operandi of the kidnapper was similar in both cases. He chose the target at random, told her he knew her father or brother, and took her along in an autorickshaw to a far-off guesthouse," said the officer.

The police summoned the autorickshaw driver who had ferried the actors daughter and her alleged abductor, and also the manager of the hotel where she was allegedly subjected to "unnatural sex". Both of them identified Doshi. "This confirmed that Doshi was involved in the Oshiwara case too," said the officer.

A senior police officer said Doshi, who has also been to the United States, has a criminal history. "He is involved in as many as 26 cases of chain snatching, some of which are being investigated by the Charkop police and the crime branch," the officer said.

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