Continuing the heinous string of sexual crimes against children, a bus cleaner molested a 3-year-old girl while she was being dropped at home in the school bus last week, cops said. The cleaner was arrested after the child’s family registered a molestation case against him. In a similar incident on January 18, a bus driver was arrested for molesting a schoolgirl in a Juhu-based school’s bus.

The victim in the recent case studies in a playgroup at a Malad school. The accused, Sandip Pandurang Mandale (24), was employed as a bus cleaner for seven months. He lives in Santacruz near Shastri Nagar with his family. Police sources said that on the afternoon of February 20, the accused kissed the child on the lips and touched her inappropriately when she was alone in the bus. The incident occurred when the children were being dropped back home around noon after school.