Shantanu Ghosh rests at home after being rescued at Garia station. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

A gang of four women threw a child on to a platform from a moving train at Garia station, before robbing his mother of ornaments and assaulting her in a crowded coach on Wednesday morning.

While three-year-old Shantanu Ghosh suffered a few scratches, the assault left Lakshmirani Ghosh bleeding from the nose and mouth.

“I was helpless and crying while the women were beating me up, but no one came to my rescue. Everyone in the coach was terrorised by the gang,” recalled Lakshmirani, yet to get over the shock.

Only one member of the gang could be arrested when the Sealdah-bound train stopped at Jadavpur. The rest jumped off the coach and ran away in full public view.

Lakshmirani, a resident of Garia, had gone to Subhasgram to fetch her son from school. The two boarded the women’s compartment of a Down Baruipur local.

When the train reached Garia around 11am, the duo tried to make their way to the door. “One of the passengers shouted out at me, saying my hair had touched her face. I realised she was trying to create trouble,” said Lakshmirani.

“I ignored the charge, but I suddenly found myself being dragged away from the door, while my son was thrown on to the platform. The train had by then left for Bagha Jatin,” she added.

Shantanu rolled over the platform a few times and was picked up by commuters, who handed him over to the station master. Hearing about the incident from the boy, whose father is the station master of Baruipur station, the Garia authorities alerted Bagha Jatin. But the train had already left for Jadavpur.

The message was immediately forwarded to Jadavpur, where the train was detained. By then, Lakshmirani was beaten up and had lost her gold chain and earrings to the snatchers. When police boarded the coach, they could find only one snatcher.

Lakshmirani was taken to hospital where doctors treated her injuries and advised her to get a CT scan done. Officials at Garia station escorted her son home.