Supermarket vendor gropes girl in lift in Dubai, gets three-month jail

Dubai - The 23-year-old will be deported after completing his jail term.

A supermarket vendor has been sentenced to three months in jail in Dubai after he was found guilty of molesting a 10-year-old girl.

The Dubai public prosecution accused the 23-year-old Indian vendor of groping the Kenyan girl on January 10 this year.

The Dubai Court of First Instance ordered that the vendor be deported after the completion of his jail term.

The girl's parents had lodged a complaint at Al Qusais police station.

"I sent my daughter to a supermarket in the same building where we live to buy some bread. It was around 10am. She came few minutes later shaking and looking scared. She told me to call the police," the girl's mother told the prosecutor.

On learning what the defendant did, the mother told her husband who then went down looking for the vendor.

The mother recounted to the prosecution investigator what she heard from her daughter. "She told me that she saw him in the lift as the supermarket employees stay in an accommodation in the same floor. After she bought the bread, he told her to wait then followed her to the lift where he groped her while grabbing her by her mouth."

The girl's parents checked the building security recordings which captured the worker walking out of the lift behind her daughter then following her later inside it. They called the police and the defendant was apprehended.

The girl told the investigator that the defendant touched her on purpose as he kept staring at her since she took the lift. "I could not scream for help because he covered my mouth with his hand."

The ruling may be appealed.

mary@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai