Dubai: A delivery man has been accused of groping a 13-year-old boy inside a residential building’s lift.

The 25-year-old Indian delivery man, N.M., was using the lift while dropping off a delivery when he groped the Egyptian boy and asked him to remove his pants in May 2015.

Prosecutors charged N.M. with molesting the boy in Dubai Silicon Oasis.

The suspect entered a not guilty plea when he defended himself before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday.

“I did not touch the boy,” the suspect argued in court.

“Then why would he accuse you of molesting him?” presiding judge Ezzat Abdul Lat asked the suspect.

“I do not know. I did not touch him. I am a deliveryman and work in a nearby grocery store. I was taking a delivery to the same building where the boy lives. When the elevator door opened, I tried to walk inside, but he pushed me. So I pushed him back. Police tortured me and coerced me to admit to something I did not commit,” replied the defendant.

According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said N.M. groped the boy and asked him to remove his pants.

The boy’s father claimed to prosecutors that the incident happened after he asked his son to buy some goods from the grocery store.

“When he came home at 7.20pm, he claimed to me that the deliveryman molested him. When I asked him what happened, he told me that the suspect groped him inside the lift and asked him to undress. I rushed down to the building’s entrance and when the suspect spotted me, he sat down on the floor and repeatedly said he was mistaken. I asked him to sit up straight … then I called the police. My son told me that the defendant had molested him a few months before the incident but he was too scared to inform me. However he told me what happened that day because the defendant had asked him to remove his pants,” the father testified.

The 13-year-old boy was cited telling prosecutors that the suspect groped him and asked him to undress.

“I was going up to our flat at the seventh floor when the suspect asked me to remove my pants. I refused and felt scared. Once the lift door opened, I ran out and rushed to my dad and told him what had happened,” he claimed.

A ruling will be heard soon.