Hidden camera at women's toilet: M.Sc. student Santosh M arrested

Mangaluru, Sep 1: More than three weeks after a hidden was found inside a women's toilet on Mangalore University campus, the police have managed to arrest the main accused in the case.

The arrested has been identified as Santosh M (22), a second year student of M.Sc. in Marine Geology.

Mangaluru City Police Commissioner M Chandra Sekhar on Wednesday told media persons that the accused has confessed to the crime.

He said that the accused had left the campus for nearly a week after a complaint was filed at the jurisdictional Konaje police station by Registrar K.M. Lokesh.

Mr. Sekhar said the accused returned to the campus thinking the police would take some time to get the forensics report in light of the trouble in Bengaluru over the Cauvery issue. “But we caught him off-guard as we went ahead with our investigation while waiting for the FSL report,” he said.

The accused has also admitted to purchasing the mobile phone and a power bank and installing them in the washroom. “It was nothing but an act of a perverted mind,” Mr. Sekhar said.

82 suspects quizzed

The top cop said that it was the particular dressing gait of the accused that came in handy in zeroing in on him, after quizzing 82 suspects during the course of investigation.

He was usually wearing the shirt with his vest visible (unbuttoning the first button in the top order). He also turned out to be the same masked man (in particular dressing style) who was actually captured on the same cell phone camera, while keeping the device in the toilet.”

Above all, it was the meticulous groundwork of a posse of policemen led by Shivaprasad K attached to jurisdictional Konaje police station that helped in cracking the case.?Apart from gathering the information, the team was also involved in accessing the closed circuit TV footages, matching the available details.

Mr Sekhar said, it was a second hand phone that had changed several hands before reaching the hands of the accused. He had bought the phone and power bank from different shops in a same commercial complex in the city just two weeks before the incident.

Though the camera was found on August 24, a case was registered in the Konaje police station only on September 1 after the news went viral on social media.

A girl student had noticed the hidden camera in the roof of the toilet on August 24. She immediately informed Bioscience Department faculty Dr Tharavathy N?C, who in turn brought the matter to the notice of Vice Chancellor Prof K?Byrappa. The VC asked Registrar Lokesh K?M to look into the matter.

Prof Lokesh had referred the matter to Sparsh,' a committee in the university that looks into issues related to girl students. The committee headed by Dr Musteri Begaum had reportedly submitted a report to the VC's office on August 28. However, the VC had been to Delhi to attend a meeting on August 28. By the time he returned on August 31, the news had spread.

As the camera phone was on' when it was noticed by the student, it is suspected that the person might have placed it there just a few hours ago. It is also said that the phone was concealed in a paper and was painted so that it is not easily noticed. There was no sim in the phone.