UF student Robin Garg, 22, was arrested for groping a UF student outside Library West on Tuesday night.
Garg later confessed to groping 32 other female students on campus since last Friday, according to University Police Department. Lt. Darren Baxley.
Garg is accused of groping each of the women after telling them he was trying to remove a bug from their bodies.
He told police he went on the groping spree because he "liked to scare women," Baxley said.
He said Garg has only been charged once with a misdemeanor battery, but Baxley expects the number of charges to increase when the other victims identify Garg as their attacker.
As of Wednesday morning, UPD had received 15 to 18 calls from women who might have been groped by Garg. Although he admitted to 33 incidents, Baxley said he doesn't think that is the exact number.
"We're still trying to flesh that out," he said.
Baxley said it appears Garg targeted white, student-aged females.
"It seems to be pretty consistent," he said.
All of the known incidents occurred near the core of campus, he said, from the Reitz Union North Lawn to Little Hall.
The story was the same in each case, he said.
"Every one of them involved the bug," he said.
"There's no real differentiation between any of these cases," he said. "It's really quite odd."
In Tuesday's incident, which happened around 8:20 p.m., Garg allegedly told the student she had a bug on her and then started touching her, telling her he was removing the bug, according to UPD. He then put his hand under the student's shirt without her consent.
The student, along with several other witnesses, called UPD, Baxley said.
Officers caught up with Garg about 20 minutes later as he was walking near Turlington Hall, Baxley said.
He said UPD was able to nab Garg so quickly because the department already had several undercover officers in the area attempting to catch him in the act.
A master's student in computer and information science and engineering,
Garg came to UF in the fall of 2008 from Maharshi Dayanand University in India, according to UF spokesman Steve Orlando.
Garg was booked at the Alachua County Jail Tuesday night, with bond set at $5,000. Chris Loschiavo, director of UF's Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, said he couldn't comment on whether Garg might face sanctions from UF, citing student privacy rules.
