It was a regular Saturday afternoon inside a police station in Mumbai’s Malad. The room, second from the entrance to the premises, was filled with complainants, each vying for the attention of police officers seated behind their desks.
One group of 7-8 people stood out. There was a woman who had come with her parents and brother seeking police help against harassment by her in-laws. Incidentally, her husband and in-laws too had arrived. They were arguing loudly, their voices cutting through the din.
Sub-Inspector (SI) Ganesh Avate (35), the station officer on duty, intervened, trying to settle their dispute.
Around 3 pm, Avate momentarily broke away from the commotion. He glanced outside the door and saw something unusual.
A group of eight people, three women and five men, appeared to be having a heated exchange entirely through gestures. No words were spoken. Their expressions were taut, their hand movements seemed urgent.
A few minutes later, they silently walked inside and stood outside the door to the station house. Sensing their presence, Avate quickly broke up the family dispute with a stern warning — live peacefully or face legal action. The group fell silent, and left.
The group of eight stood waiting in total silence. Avate was surprised. He had rarely encountered such silent complainants.
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“Andar aa jao, kya hua (come inside, what happened?),” asked Avate. They hesitated but walked in when he gestured with his hand.
A woman, aged 34, allegedly stepped forward and began gesturing rapidly. Avate froze. He realised she was hearing and speech impaired — and so was the rest of the group. That explained the silent exchange he witnessed outside.
But he didn’t know sign language.
“For a few seconds, my mind didn’t work… Automatically, I made a few gestures like touching my temple with my fingers and waving my hands to tell her I couldn’t understand what she was saying.”
Sensing his confusion, the woman allegedly paused. One of the men, her husband, signed to her. She immediately took a piece of paper from her bag and handed it to Avate.
It was a one-page letter written in English.
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As Avate began reading, the gravity of the situation hit him instantly. The letter alleged that in 2009, the woman had allegedly been raped by a man who mixed a sedative in her drink. She wasn’t his only victim. He had targeted several other women, it alleged.
“It did not take even a fraction of a second to understand that this was a serious case,” Avate recalled.
But there was a challenge. “How do I communicate?” he mused out loud. “How could I record a First Information Report (FIR) without understanding her language?”
Almost as if he read Avate’s mind, one of the men in the group, who appeared to be their leader, made a video call. After signing briefly, he handed the phone to the SI.
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On the screen was a woman who introduced herself as Madhu Keni, a social worker fluent in sign language. She told Avate she was on her way to the police station and would assist him in registering the FIR.
Avate then offered water and tea to the group, asking them to settle down on a bench.
Around 4 pm, Keni arrived.
For the next three hours, police hunkered down to understand what happened 16 years ago. The woman narrated her story and Keni meticulously translated every sign into Marathi. Police video-graphed the interaction.
What emerged was a disturbing crime.
Suppressed for 16 years
It was July 2009.
The woman was allegedly in her teens, living with her parents.
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One day, a friend allegedly invited her to her birthday party and she went with her mother. The next day, the woman said, the friend and another girl allegedly came to her house and asked her to come out with them. Her mother agreed, but told her to get back before it got late, she said in her statement to the police, as per the FIR that was lodged.
They left around noon. The three allegedly took an auto to another house in the vicinity. According to the FIR, the woman asked her friend why they had brought her to someone else’s house, but she said she wanted to introduce her to an acquaintance — Mahesh Pawar.
The woman claimed she initially refused to go in and stood at the door. After much cajoling by her friend, she stepped inside and was introduced to Pawar. She said she was afraid but her friend convinced her that he is a good person and is married, the FIR stated.
In the meantime, Pawar allegedly went out to buy samosas and cold drinks for the girls, which they had.
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After a while, the woman claimed the two girls had to leave. However, the FIR claimed, they ‘insisted’ she stay for a while and promised they would return.
Soon, the woman allegedly said she felt dizzy and collapsed. According to the FIR, she alleged that the accused sexually assaulted her then. In and out of consciousness, she said she tried to resist him but he allegedly held her mouth shut.
The woman alleged that she woke up around 7 pm and saw the accused and the two girls sitting next to her.
The three left Pawar’s home and took an auto-rickshaw back to the woman’s residence. The girls allegedly went their own way. The woman said she was unable to walk and a person she knew, who happened to be nearby, helped her reach her home, stated the FIR.
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The next day, the FIR claimed, the woman confided in her mother who allegedly beat her up and refused to file a complaint as it would malign their image in society.
Two days later, the accused and her friend allegedly met the victim. The FIR claimed, Pawar allegedly threatened her, warning that if she went to the police, he would harm her. Terrified, she was forced to bury the crime.
Pawar and the friend of the woman were booked under IPC sections 376 (rape), 506 (2) (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention), said police.
Keni, 65, who worked for more than three decades at the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities, an autonomous organisation in Bandra, said, “The police had several questions… I explained these to the victim and once she understood, she answered in sign language. I then translated those answers in Marathi to the police officer. Such communication, while time consuming, needs patience and effort.”
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While she retired five years ago, she continues to work with speech- and hearing-impaired people for free.
But how did the group find out Pawar was involved in the alleged crimes?
According to the police, the woman and her husband, aged 33, were part of a WhatsApp group, comprising 250 hearing- and speech-impaired people in Mumbai. It was a safe space to share experiences and connect socially.
In September 2025, two-three videos allegedly popped up on the group.
And when the woman saw them, police said, her trauma from 17 years ago came rushing back. It was disturbing footage of assault, one video even depicted a person allegedly being threatened and physically harmed.
Police said she also recognised the man in the video — it was her assaulter from 2009, Pawar. Gathering courage, she finally told her husband, who is also hearing and speech impaired, about the assault. He stood by her, consoled her, and promised to help her get justice.
The woman’s husband allegedly discussed the matter with the ‘leaders’ of other WhatsApp groups for the hearing and speech impaired. These leaders, according to a police officer, are educated individuals who can communicate in English.
Some of them suggested contacting Keni. In the first week of October, they met her at Thane railway station, explained the situation to her, and requested she assist them as a translator. Keni allegedly agreed, assuring them that she would come to the police station whenever and wherever her services were required, the police officer said.
The leaders set about gathering evidence, like videos from the WhatsApp group, and drafted a letter in English detailing the ordeal.
On December 13 last year, the woman, her husband and the others approached the police station in Malad.
Police said they alleged that Pawar would record videos of the assault on women and later blackmail them, demanding money and jewellery. If the victims refused, he allegedly threatened to leak the videos on social media, said another police officer.
Police said it now appears that Pawar did allegedly circulate the videos on WhatsApp groups of hearing-impaired individuals — which was how the woman came across them.
Tracking Pawar
At the police station, the officers asked the woman’s acquaintances to reach out to Pawar’s social circle for information on his whereabouts. They soon learned that he had been living in the Virar area for several years. After multiple inquiries, they got his mobile phone number — but it was switched off.
Around 7 pm on December 13, a team led by Assistant Police Inspector Sanjay Gholave and Sub-Inspector Somnath Jadhav, under the guidance of a senior officer, headed to Virar to track down Pawar.
For the next four to five hours, police said, the team followed technical leads while monitoring mobile phone data to pinpoint Pawar’s location. At 11.45 pm, they had a breakthrough. Pawar switched on his phone and the tower location was traced.
The officers proceeded cautiously. “Before approaching the building where he lived, we made discreet inquiries from neighbours. We learned that the accused lived on the fourth floor — but he was not home at that time,” said Jadhav.
They didn’t have to wait long.
At 12.45 am on December 14, arrest warrant in hand, the police team knocked on the door of his flat. A young boy in his teens opened the door. Asked if his father was inside, he said yes, said SI Jadhav. Pawar’s mother and wife were home too.
The police team, however, was stupefied when they found that Pawar, as well as his wife, were also hearing impaired. The officers explained the case to Pawar’s mother, who translated it for her son.
“Initially, the accused pretended he was unaware of the incident. But once we showed him the warrant and explained the matter to his family, he stopped resisting. We brought him to the police station around 2 am,” said police.
According to police, Pawar, now 45 years old, grew up in Mumbai’s western suburbs. He studied till Class X. He claimed to be a social worker, helping members of his own community.
“During questioning, he admitted that he used to live elsewhere in Mumbai, where the 2009 crime had allegedly taken place,” said a police officer.
Police subsequently took Pawar to his old residence — a 150-square-foot room. Officers said he claimed the room had been locked since 2012 and was never rented out.
He was later sent to judicial custody.
Meanwhile, another police station was informed as the 2009 incident had occurred within its jurisdiction. The case was formally transferred. The woman, along with the rest of her group, Keni and the police, went to this police station where she recounted the incident in sign language once again.
A police officer at the second police station said there is just one victim so far. “There could be more but… we cannot comment on the case yet.”
Another officer, who is part of the probe, said, “It is possible that the women may not want to come forward due to fear and social stigma.”
Police said they did find another victim, in her early 20s, who alleged that the accused, Pawar, had sexually assaulted her in 2023. But she refused to give her statement officially and did not file a complaint against the accused as yet, said the officer.
According to Keni, for the hearing impaired, approaching the police is not just intimidating, it is frightening. They worry that officers will not understand sign language, that their statements will be misinterpreted, or worse, ignored.
“Many fear that getting involved in legal proceedings could drag them into prolonged court cases, putting their jobs and livelihoods at risk,” she said, adding that most hearing-impaired people survive on jobs that pay Rs 20,000-Rs 25,000 a month.
There is a trust issue as well, she said. “They only trust interpreters who they know very well or who have been suggested by close friends or family members… They will open up only if they trust the interpreter. If they don’t, they simply shut down.”
This trust factor recently posed a challenge for the police. When Keni was out of the city between December 19 and 29, officers arranged for another interpreter to record the woman’s detailed statement again but she did not communicate much. So, the police waited for Keni’s return.
The victim’s final statements were recorded on December 31 which took nearly 10 hours — from 11 am to 9 pm.
“It takes time because you are not just translating words; you are translating emotions, fear and trauma,” Keni said.
Police, meanwhile, revealed another startling detail: Pawar, they said, is a key witness in the 2024 murder in Pydhonie.
Police said the victim in that case, 30-year-old Arshad Shaikh, who was speech- and hearing-impaired, was allegedly killed by friends, Jai Pravin Chawda and Shivjeet Singh, with similar disabilities. His body was discovered inside a suitcase at Dadar railway station.
The two men were arrested. Police claimed Shaikh’s wife, Rukhsana, was also arrested for allegedly plotting the murder with Chawda with whom she was reportedly having an affair.
Another key accused, Jagpal Preet Kamal Singh alias Jazzy B, an Indian-origin resident of Brussels, is alleged to have instigated the killing through a video call.
“All the people involved in the case are suffering from a disability and we have learnt that it is a very small-knit community in which Jagpal had a huge following. But as Shaikh had suddenly become popular, Jagpal was jealous of his rising followers due to which it is suspected that he hatched a plan to bump him off,” the police had said earlier. “We also got footage which revealed that Chawda had made a video call to Jagpal to show the killing following which it came to light that he had instigated the whole crime”.
Pawar, police said, was in the same WhatsApp group as the victim and accused, and was aware of their dispute.
Back at the police station, SI Avate said he wished he could investigate the case.
“It is different from routine crimes. I was keen to investigate further but the case was transferred due to a jurisdictional issue,” he said. “… Friends of the victim are still in touch… and often say that I was the one who heard the pain of one of their own. They also seek updates on the case, especially about bail, fearing retaliation if the accused is released. I have assured them that the Mumbai Police stands with them and they should not worry”.
