Siliguri, April 4: The Delhi-Alipurduar Mahananda Express, on which a teenager was gangraped last night, had only four security guards.

Seventeen-year-old Sushila Oraon (name changed) was one of only eight passengers, including three children, in the 90-seater unreserved coach that the goons boarded at Siliguri.

“Four criminals boarded the train around 8pm, whipped out their daggers and asked passengers to hand over their belongings,” said M.S. Punia, the Siliguri superintendent of railway police.

“When Sushila resisted, they pounced on her and raped her repeatedly,” said one of the girls accompanying her.

The goons pulled the chain to stop the train and fled somewhere between Siliguri and New Mal stations. No guard came to check why the chain was pulled. When the train reached New Mal station, 50km from Siliguri, Sushila lodged a complaint with the police. She was returning home — at Rungamuttee Tea Estate in Malbazar — from Delhi, where she works as a maid, with two others from the same garden.

Punia defended the deployment of only four guards on the train. “It runs in our area during the day.” The train was running six hours late last evening.

A youth from Malbazar, 40km from Siliguri, was arrested tonight in connection with the rape.