Mumbai Police arrested the 60-year-old businessman on charges of allegedly raping his two daughters. The mother of the two girls has also been arrested for abetment.
The elder daughter, now 21, was allegedly raped for 10 years. The businessman started raping his second daughter - a 15-year-old - just a few months ago. The elder daughter then confided in her maternal grandmother when she saw her younger sister being targeted just as she had been by her father.
Police say the couple was under the influence of atantrik, Hasmukh Rathod, who said raping the girls will bring the family prosperity.
Police say the father started raping his elder daughter when she was 11 years old after thetantrik advised the father to have sexual relations with her.
"The father has been raping her for nine years on the pretext that it would make him rich. The tantriktoo has been raping the younger daughter for five months now," claims police officer Mukund Mahajan.
The incident is reminiscent of the infamous Josef Fritzl incest case in Austria. Fritzl faces trial for imprisoning and raping his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children.
He has pleaded guilty to all charges including rape, incest and enslavement of his daughter. The 73-year-old Fritzl has also admitted to being responsible for the death of one of the seven children after video testimony by his daughter.
Some cases of a father raping his daughter that have been in news in the past include the case of a 13-year-old Bhopal girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by her father on February 4, 2009, when she complained to him about her cousin who had been raping her.
In April 2005 a 14-year-old girl in Hyderabad yd had been repeatedly raped by her father and even became pregnant.
In October 2006 Pratima, 25, a Dalit woman accused her father, Birendra Kumar, SDM of a Derapur in Banda district in Kanpur, for raping her for more than a year.
In another shocking incident the principal and two teachers of an institution for disabled girls in Himachal Pradesh have been arrested for sexually abusing at least six of them for a year.
The arrest came after raids on the institution, Prerna Welfare.
