“Derek is not the kind of person who would do something like this. On the contrary, he has always been shy about girls,” sobbed Manisha Jadhav, mother of Derek Jadhav (19), one of those arrested. “I don’t know how he got stuck in this.”

Manohar Jadhav, Derek’s father and a photographer at Film City in Goregaon, says trouble began when they saw two of their colony’s boys in photographs being flashed by television channels on January 1. Jadhav says four from the group, partying at Juhu beach after celebrations on the terrace of Siddhivinayak Society, rushed forward to check on the melee outside the J W Marriott and ended up appearing in the photographs of the incident. The families of these 12 youths claim that the boys had surrendered in order to assist in the investigation after the police came to the locality on Thursday.

“Why are channels and newspapers calling them most wanted? They are not criminals,” Jadhav protested. Derek joined his father as a photographer after his schooling, while Sudhir Naikwade, a Std XII pass, works as a turner and fitter, the residents said. Sandeep Shukla runs a small mobile repairing and sales stall. Siddharth Singh is a student of science at a suburban college while Kunal Jadhav is completing a graphics designing course. Ajay Marathe, Sandeep Panchal and Manoj Panchal work as office boys in different companies. Swapnil Mandhre works as a data entry operator while Amit Kapoor sells insurance policies.

Siddhivinayak Society is an unassuming building developed under the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) scheme, its residents having mostly shifted from the chawl just across the road.

Jayshree, mother of Amit Kapoor (26), alleged that the police falsely implicated her son. She claimed that her son was with his friends in Vashi at the time the incident occurred and even claimed she had a credit card receipt used by her son to pay a restaurant bill in Vashi. Another resident said: “Anyone can check the antecedents of the 14 youths who have been arrested. These are people from good families and none of them has even a non-cognizable offence registered against him.”