Patna, July 24: Bihar BJP lawmaker Tunnaji Pandey was arrested today on charges of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl onboard a train near Sarai in Vaishali district.

Government Railway Police (GRP) took the member of Legislative Council (MLC) into custody at Hajipur railway station, around 21km northeast of Patna, soon after the girl's father complained against him.

The MLC, who is from Siwan, was produced before a special court in Hajipur, which forwarded him to judicial custody till August 8.

Muzaffarpur superintendent of rail police B.N. Jha said Pandey had been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, besides charges of molestation.

According to the cops, the incident occurred near Sarai station around 3.15am onboard the Howrah-Gorakhpur Purvanchal Express. The girl told the police that the MLC, who was travelling on berth number 43 in an air-conditioned first-class bogey (A1), touched her inappropriately when she was sleeping, tried to kiss her and demanded that she come near the compartment toilet.

When she shouted for help he threatened her with dire consequences, she added.

Hajipur GRP station house officer (SHO) Sanjay Singh said the cops took the legislator into custody when the train arrived at Hajipur station around 3.30am. Singh's Sonepur counterpart Tapeshwar Prasad, who was travelling in the train, had informed Singh about the incident over mobile phone.

"The girl, her parents and a close relative were on their way to Gorakhpur from Howrah," said SHO Singh. "The girl was so frightened after the incident that special arrangements had to be made to send the family to Gorakhpur by road."

Singh said the MLC also threatened him when he was being taken into custody.

"I can't believe that a people's representative would behave like this," the girl's father, who works abroad, told The Telegraph.

He said he had arrived in Calcutta on July 19. He along with his wife, daughter and nephew spent a few days in Calcutta and boarded the train for Gorakhpur around 2.30pm on Saturday.

The father praised the railway police. "Had they not acted on time, he (Pandey) might have escaped," he said, adding that the family was in shock.

The MLC, who had boarded the train in Durgapur, Bengal, was supposed to get off at Hajipur.

The police seized a ticket and a mobile phone from the lawmaker. Some cash was also recovered, which was later handed over to his men. Pandey, a native of Siwan's Netwar village, was travelling with his bodyguard and the manager of a sugar mill, GRP sources said.

Hajipur GRP SHO Singh said the police conducted a medical test on the legislator to ascertain whether he was drunk. "Initial investigation didn't suggest that he was drunk at the time of the incident," the SHO told The Telegraph.

An investigating officer added: "Pandey was in the liquor trade before he entered politics in 2014."

During interrogation, Pandey told the police that he had gone to Durgapur to help an acquaintance who works in a sugar factory in Bihar, GRP sources said.

"I have done no wrong," a GRP source quoted the lawmaker as having told the cops. "It is possible that when I was trying to collect my luggage and mobile charger as the train was about to reach Hajipur, the bag might have touched the girl."

SHO Singh said they "swung into action and arrested" Pandey after the girl gave her statement. The incident was so shameful that he did not want to provide details, the SHO added.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted that the party had suspended Pandey.

Deputy chief minister Tejashwi rubbed it into the BJP, and tweeted: " Kaun faila raha hai Bihar mein jungle raj Modi ji, nikaliye ab candle march......? (Who is responsible for jungle raj in Bihar, Sushil Modiji, now take out a candle march?)."

Pandey had hit the headlines in January 2013 when he lodged a complaint accusing the then deputy inspector-general of Saran range, Alok Kumar, of demanding Rs 10 crore extortion money from him. Kumar, a 1997-batch IPS officer of the Jammu and Kashmir cadre who was on interstate deputation at the time, was repatriated from Bihar after he was suspended. Patna High Court later exonerated the IPS officer of the charges.

Pandey is the second state lawmaker accused of misbehaviour in a train this year. In January, JDU MLA from Jokihat Sarfraz Alam was arrested on charges of misbehaving with a woman on the Dibrugarh-New Delhi Rajdhani Express. Alam, son of former Union minister Mohammad Taslimuddin, is out on bail; the case is pending in court.