Pune: Residents living around Bopdev Ghat and those commute through the ghat section every day raised safety concerns after Thursday midnight's gang rape . They claimed that there were cases of robbery and eve-teasing in this area earlier. But this incident scared them, the residents stressed.
A resident of a nearby village said the "Table Top Point" and "Parsi Point", both located within a few metres of where the alleged sexual assault was reported on Thursday, had become favourite destinations for couples over the last few years. "There have been many cases in the past when these couples were robbed of their cellphones and cash by unknown men. Such cases go unreported as most of these young victims do not reach out to the police to lodge a complaint," he said.
Ganesh Lonkar, who runs an eatery near the ghat, told TOI, "The courage of these criminals has increased to such a level that there were cases of them stopping moving vehicles in the ghat and looting people of their cash and cellphones. Many villagers who commute through here every day are scared to travel at night because of such incidents." The 4km ghat, located on the Kondhwa-Saswad road between Yewalewadi and Askarwadi village, connects several villages of Purandar taluka with Pune city.
It has become one of the popular sightseeing destinations for many people in the surrounding areas because of the mountains and the top view it offers of Pune city. On weekends, the area becomes so crowded that often additional po.