Pritam Bhattacharjee’s uncle Ram Mohan Bhattacharjee (left) shows a photograph of the missing youth at Naugachia in Bhagalpur on Friday. Picture by Amit Kumar

Police in Naugachia today confirmed that 25-year-old Guwahati youth Pritam Bhattacharjee had alighted from the train at the railway station on Monday while giving chase to two persons who were fleeing with his bag.

Naugachia superintendent of police (SP) Jayant Kant said the police identified a vendor, who revealed that the youth was spotted running after two persons on the platform on Monday.

“The youth missed the train in the process and was later seen moving helter-skelter at the railway station,” Kant quoted the vendor as saying.

Pritam, Kant informed, was travelling on berth No 36 of the S-10 coach of the Delhi-bound Awadh Assam Express. The youth from Silchar, who has a master’s degree in physics, was travelling to Delhi for a PhD enrolment exam.

Pritam went missing on Monday afternoon after he had called up his parents in Silchar and informed them that he was being “tormented” by four youths who were travelling with him. Pritam told his mother that the youths snatched his bag at Naugachia and fled the train and that he had managed to give chase to two of them but in vain.

Kant, who heads the Naugachia rail district and launched an investigation after getting information about the missing youth, said the vendor recognised Pritam from the photographs published in newspapers.

“This is hundred per cent true that Pritam had alighted from the Awadh Assam Express at Naugachia railway station,” Kant said.

The SP told The Telegraph that the police contacted the travelling ticket examiner to ascertain the identity of the passengers of the coach in which Pritam was travelling. “We are now trying to get details of other passengers who were travelling with Pritam from the Guwahati railway station personnel,” he said, adding that this would help them draw up sketches of the alleged tormentors.

The government railway police (GRP), which formally registered an FIR are still groping in the dark. “No GRP official except an assistant sub-inspector of police, Gajendra Kumar, was present at the police station on that day. Kumar also left the police station to join his duty as a member of the escort party before the arrival of the Awadh Assam Express at the railway station,” station house officer of Naugachia GRP Manish Kumar Saha said.

Saha said all the police officials had gone to attend an official meeting convened by the superintendent of rail police. “So we have no idea if Pritam went to the police station to lodge a complaint,” Saha said.

He, however, admitted that Pritam may have narrated the incident to some man in uniform, who may have been present there by accident. Pritam had told his mother that he had informed a policeman about his travails but no action had been taken.

Inspector-general (rail) Vinay Kumar said deputy superintendent of police Alok Kumar had been asked to visit Naugachia to assist in the investigations. Kumar, who is at present posted at Barauni, visited Naugachia and inquired about the incident. “We have left no stone unturned to locate the youth,” he said.

Pritam’s relatives are camping at Naugachia. His uncle Ram Mohan Bhattacharjee said: “We came to know through newspapers that the law and order situation has improved in Bihar during the present dispensation. But the ground reality tells a different story,” he said.

“What else can be an example of ‘improved’ law and order in the state when a youth travelling in a reserved compartment is tormented by unauthorised travellers. They vanished with his bag from the railway platform in full public view and nothing happened,” said Bhattacharjee, a bank employee in Silchar.

Bhattacharjee, who is accompanied by Pritam’s maternal uncle Kinsuk Bhattacharjee, another uncle K.K. Purkayastha and cousin Pushpak Bhattacharjee, said they were worried about the health of Pritam’s parents.