Cuttack, March 31: The Commissionerate Police today started a probe into the alleged sexual harassment of a young woman by a co-passenger while she was travelling in a private bus from Kendrapara to Cuttack on Wednesday morning.

"The deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Cuttack, has been assigned the job following directions from the chief minister. We hope to nab the culprit within a day or two," police commissioner Y.B. Khurania said here today.

The young girl's plight in the bus came to light as she kept tweeting about her ordeal during the journey and wrote a detailed account of the incident on the Facebook on reaching home.

However, when she was going through her ordeal and desperately sought help, police helplines did not work. When the bus had neared the OMP Square in Cuttack and with none of the 60 accompanying passengers coming to her rescue, she had called up the police helpline (100). Though she had made several calls to the number, it remained unreachable.

Then she had also tried the special helpline number for women (1091), but no one bothered to pick up the call, the girl alleged in her Facebook post and while speaking at length to The Telegraph yesterday.

"The alleged failure of the helpline number authorities in answering the call of the girl is also a part of the inquiry," the police commissioner said while parrying questions on the case at the press conference here today.

The girl had not registered a complaint with the police as she felt it would be of no use. Asked whether the police had registered a case, Khurania said: "We are looking into all aspects of the case. A decision on the future course of action will be taken on the basis of the findings of the inquiry".

In her tweets and Facebook post, she had tagged the handles of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union minister of state for petroleum Dharmendra Pradhan and the commissionerate police.

While taking note of it, Naveen had directed the commissionerate police to conduct an inquiry and take immediate action while fixing responsibility for the lapses.

Naveen's response was posted on his Facebook page and Twitter handle of the chief minister's office (CMO).

According to the young girl, an elderly man had stood near her aisle seat in the bus she was travelling and kept touching her inappropriately, stopping when given a stern look by her.

Later her predicament became worse when the man got a seat right behind her and began touching her inappropriately again. There were 60 passengers in the bus, but no one came forward to her help, forcing her to turn to the helpline numbers, but in vain.

DCP (Cuttack) Sanjeev Arora refused to reveal the progress of the inquiry. "We will come out with the findings when the probe is over".