A court on Friday (February 28, 2025) remanded a 37-year-old accused of raping a woman in an unoccupied parked state transport bus at Swargate depot in Pune city to police custody until March 12.
The suspect, Dattatray Ramdas Gade, was arrested from a paddy field after an overnight search operation aided by drones and sniffer dogs around midnight on Thursday in Pune district’s Shirur tehsil.
He was officially arrested and presented in the Pune Sessions Court under heavy police protection. The police had filed a remand petition before the court and requested custody of Gade for 14 days.
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A ligature mark was reported on the neck of the accused by Pune police, which raised suspicion that he may have tried to commit suicide.
“The police deployed drones and sniffer dogs to locate the accused, Dattaray Ramdas Gade, who was hiding in a paddy field in his home tehsil of Shirur and arrested him late at night,” an official said.
A top police official stated, “Gade was taken to Pune by 2 a.m. He was taken for a medical check-up and formally arrested. The accused will be produced in court later in the day.” Gade is a history-sheeter who escaped to his hometown of Shirur after allegedly raping a 26-year-old woman on board a State transport bus at Swargate bus stand in Pune during the early hours of Tuesday. Police told the court that he called her ‘didi’ (sister) and took her to an empty ‘Shiv Shahi’ bus parked in the depot premises and raped her.
The Pune police on Thursday (February 27, 2025) used drones and a dog squad in Gunat village to arrest the accused and 13 teams were included in the search operation,” said an official. “Joint commissioner of police Ranjan Kumar Sharma also visited the village and briefed his officers,” he added.
“The search operation in sugarcane fields with drones and dog squads was halted at night. But we got a tip that Gade had gone to a house seeking food. We reached the location, but he escaped. The family in the house provided him with a bottle of water,” the official added.
He mentioned that the family reported the presence of the accused to the police, following which the police party resumed the search. The official mentioned that the accused was spotted hiding in a nearby paddy field and was caught.
Gade is accused in a dozen theft, robbery and chain-snatching cases in Pune and Ahilyanagar districts. He is out on bail since 2019 in one of the offences.
The accused will be brought before the court today. A special unit will investigate the case. We will attempt to take the case to a fast-track court, and a special councillor will be appointed,” police stated.
In the evening, a police team of Swargate produced Gade before the first class judicial magistrate T S Gaigole’s court, and requested his 14-day custodial remand on the basis of probing the rape case. Gade’s lawyers, Wajid Khan Bidkar and Ajinkya Mahadik, resisted the remand by filing that there was no rape and it was a case of consensual relationship after their client and the survivor had a conversation at the bus terminus. The court directed Gade’s custodial remand until March 12.
Gade, a six-time accused criminal on police records for attempt to steal, rob, and snatch phones, is also accused of raping a 26-year-old health counsellor of a Pune hospital at about 5.30am on Tuesday inside a Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC)’s Shivshahi bus, which was parked overnight at the Swargate bus terminus. The survivor complained at 9.30am on Tuesday after which police initiated a search for him.
