Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil later said the State would appeal against the bail in the High Court.

Those arrested are Kunal Jadhav (20), Amit Kapoor (26), Sebastian D’Silva (18), Swapnil Mandhre (21), Sandeep Panchal (23), Manoj Panchal (21), Vaibhav Marathe (19), Nilesh Bhagyatkar (19), Derek Jadhav (19), Siddharth Singh (19), Sudhir Naikwade (21) and Ajay Marathe (18), Ravindra Shukla (27) and Sandeep Shukla (19).

While Ravindra Shukla runs a sandwich stall at Vile Parle and is a resident of Kandivli, his cousin Sandeep Shukla lives in Vile Parle (East). The remaining 12 are all residents of a single housing colony in Vile Parle (East), a simple building called Siddhivinayak Society on Shraddhanand Road.

Announcing the arrests at a press conference in the wee hours of Friday, Joint Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) K L Prasad had said that one of the 14 had surrendered himself. However, at the Andheri magistrate’s court on Friday, even as the youngsters were first remanded to judicial custody and then applied for bail, the families of the 12 who belong to Siddhivinayak Society claimed that they too had surrendered of their own accord.

Manohar Jadhav, the father of Derek Jadhav and a photographer by profession, said: “These kids had been enjoying their December 31 on the terrace of Siddhivinayak Society. After the celebrations, they went to Juhu beach to watch the celebrations and while returning, they saw a mob near Marriott.” According to Jadhav, four of them rushed forward to check what the commotion was about and two of them, Nilesh Bhagyatkar (19) and Sudhir Naikwade (21), were captured in photographs shot by two journalists at the spot.

At about 1.45 am on January 1, two young couples leaving the J W Marriott were caught in an unruly mob of men. The two women were molested for close to 10 minutes until the photographers at the spot alerted a passing traffic police van.

After waiting over 24 hours to register an offence, the Mumbai Police finally launched a hunt for the culprits, announcing a reward for information on those in the photographs. The 14 arrested late Thursday have been charged under Sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 323, 354, 341, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act, for unlawful assembly, wrongful restraint, outraging a women’s modesty, causing hurt and various other offences.

Deputy Commissioner of Police K M Prasanna, who is holding additional charge of Zone IX, confirmed that the hunt for the other culprits continues. “More arrests will be made in the case of the Juhu molestation,” Prasanna said.

Asked to comment on the claim made by the families of the accused who live in Siddhivinayak Society that the 12 accused voluntarily surrendered to assist with the investigation, all Prasanna would say was: “They are free to make any comments that they want.”