Dubai: An unemployed man has been jailed for three months for groping a woman while she was waiting for the elevator in a residential building.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 23-year-old Pakistani man of touching the Indian manager at International City in April 2015.
According to records, the suspect fled when the woman raised an alarm. She then filed a police complaint and gave his description, but the man remained at large for four months before he was arrested in a robbery case.
When police checked if he had criminal records, his description matched that given by the woman.
The suspect pleaded not guilty in court.
The woman testified that the incident happened at 10pm while she was waiting for the elevator to go up to her flat.
“Suddenly, I felt someone touch my back. I turned and shouted at the man. He started running and I chased him for a distance before he escaped. I reported the matter to the police and the man’s face was also captured by the building’s surveillance cameras,” she said.
A police corporal testified that the defendant was busted in a theft case four months after the molestation incident.
“We compared his description and the surveillance camera footage and they matched. Upon confronting him with the woman’s molestation claim, he admitted that he touched her. The woman could not identify the 23-year-old in the police line-up since a long time had passed between the dates when she had complained and he got arrested,” the corporal said.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within a week.
