Calcutta, July 7: A husband trying to save his wife from an alleged molester was assaulted along with five friends aboard the Howrah-bound Duronto Express on Tuesday night and forced to keep mum about it by the train guard and the ticket collector.
“Aapki wife ka izzat ka sawal hai. Complain karoge to court jana hoga…. aur yeh log saara rasta aapko pareshan karenge. Kya zaroorat hai (It’s a question of your wife’s dignity. You will have to go to court if you complain….they will also harass you for the rest of the journey. What’s the use)?” Loknath Tiwari, 31, quoted the guard as saying when he wanted to lodge a complaint.
The Howrah-bound Duronto Express had then made an unscheduled stop at a place between Mughalsarai in Uttar Pradesh and Dehri-on-Sone in Bihar. The watch showed 10.55pm.
Tiwari’s traumatised wife Jyoti, 27, was huddled in her berth in the S3 sleeper compartment, while the pantry employee who had allegedly targeted her less than 30 minutes earlier roamed free on the train.
According to Tiwari, the alleged molester had been eyeing his wife since they boarded the train in Delhi — they were returning from the Amarnath Yatra — on Tuesday afternoon.
“My wife told me several times that she was feeling uncomfortable whenever the man passed by. It was the look in his eyes,” the 31-year-old said.
Around 10.30pm, at Mughalsarai railway station, the pantry employee allegedly poked Jyoti with a water bottle and tried to grope her through an open window.
“I was asleep in the berth above my wife’s when this happened. On hearing her scream, I looked down and spotted the man. I asked him why he was disturbing my wife. He started abusing me so loudly that I reached out and slapped him,” Tiwari recounted.
The pantry employee retaliated with a threat. “Tumko dekh lenge (I will fix you),” he said before walking away.
Barely had the train left Mughalsarai station when 20-25 men entered the compartment — police said they were all employees of an outsourcing agency contracted to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd — and allegedly started assaulting Tiwari and his friends.
“My wife started crying and they threatened to beat her up as well. All of them were drunk,” Tiwari said.
None of the other passengers dared come to their rescue. A rattled Tiwari pulled the chain moments before the gang dispersed, hoping to alert the train guard.
Little did he know that neither the guard nor the ticket collector of the S3 compartment would stand by him.
“After hearing what the guard had to say, I thought it was better to keep quiet. But as I had pulled the chain, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) came to know something was amiss. I was so relieved to see some uniformed men come to our compartment at Dehri-on-Sone,” Tiwari said.
He identified three of the assailants, including the pantry employee who had allegedly targeted his wife. The RPF personnel took Jyoti’s statement and lodged a complaint.
When the train reached Dhanbad station, the RPF superintendent recorded the couple’s statement and paraded some other men before them, of whom Tiwari identified four more as part of the gang that assaulted him.
He identified a ninth assailant at Howrah station.
