KALUGI FATHER

from Mira Road in Mumbai for allegedly raping his two daughters for the sake of becoming rich.

The elder girl aged 21 was suffering this humiliation for the last nine years, but finally broke her silence after her father turned on her younger sister.

The mother of the girls has also been arrested as an accessory to the crime.

Police said the Mira Road couple was under the influence of a tantrik, Hasmukh Rathod, 60, who told them in July 2000 that the family would prosper if the father were to have a sexual relationship with his daughter, then 12.

Rathod, a resident of Andheri, was also taken into custody. Locals, including neighbours of the couple, manhandled the tantrik in the police station.

The family (names withheld by the police), which hailed from Gujarat, resides in Phase I of Golden Nest on Mira-Bhayander Road. The businessman owns a unit in Andheri manufacturing radium plates for automobiles. Rathod was known to the couple for more than 20 years. Police said he, too, raped the elder daughter over a period of time, that too in her mother's presence.

In November 2008, Rathod encouraged the man to start a sexual relationship with his younger daughter. Till then, the elder girl had suffered in silence for fear of her father. But when he turned on her sister, she gathered courage and confided in her maternal uncle and grandmother, who complained to the police.