A
25-year-old woman jumped off a moving train near Dima station with her husband
and 10-month-old daughter after some men were bent on the gang-rape her, said
the railway police. No arrest has been made yet.
The Railway Protection Force (RPF) said the
couple jumped off the Mahananda Express with their child near a jungle in West
Bengal’s Rajabhatkhawa area after about a dozen co-passengers, who were
allegedly drunk, molested the woman and threatened to “tie him up and gangrape
his wife” thisTuesday.
“These men started harassing her after the
train crossed Siliguri. The incident of endangering her safety began in the
general compartment …and the family was alone with these men,” said an
official.
The
family was travelling in the general compartment and on their way to their
hometown Dinhata in Coochbehar district from Ghaziabad, where they live.
According
to the police, the group of men escaped after reaching Alipurduar. Additional
Security Commissioner (RPF) Mukul Chandra Medhi said that railway authorities
were coordinating with the local police to arrest the accused.
Deputy
commercial manager, Alipurduar-NFR, Basanta Das said: “The family said that
these men were continually threatening them. They molested the woman and told
the husband that they would kill him if he protested. They spoke to people on
the phone in front of the terrified family and kept telling them about the
things that they would do to the young woman and her husband.”
According
to the officials, the group started harassing the family around 10:30 pm.
In
her complaint, the woman alleged that the family alighted from the train at the
New Hasimara Railway station and asked the guard for help. The guard, she
claimed, told them to file the complaint at the next station, Alipurduar.
Officials,
however, denied the charge. The
family then went back to the New Dinhata railway station.
A
senior doctor at the Alipurduar Railway Hospital said that both the baby girl
and her father (32) suffered fractures in their skulls, while the woman escaped
with minor injuries.
