A Rabindra Bharati University student who was allegedly molested outside Sealdah station fought the accused and got him arrested around 1.25pm on Thursday.

The victim, doing master’s in journalism and mass communication, spotted some youths coming from the opposite direction soon after she stepped out of the station around 1.25pm.

“According to her statement, one of the youths groped her while walking past her,” said a police officer.

The woman immediately challenged the youth, later identified as Mohammad Wasim, in his mid-20s.

Witnesses said she had initially asked him what had prompted his behaviour, and when the youth replied with a volley of verbal abuses, she started beating him up.

“She was beating him up and trying to take him to the nearby police kiosk,” said a witness, one of the many who had gathered around the spot but apparently did nothing to help the woman.

While the student was trying to drag the youth to the kiosk, a few metres from the station, a policeman spotted the melee and intervened.

The woman then called Muchipara police station and conveyed to an officer what had allegedly happened to her. Within minutes, a prison van arrived.

“I was shocked when cops asked me to accompany them to the police station in the same prison van in which they were taking my tormentor. When I complained, the officer who had come in the van said this was the only vehicle available at the police station then,” the woman told Metro.

She added that there was no policewoman to help her out at the spot.

Officers at Muchipara police station said that usually policewomen were sent to a spot to round up a woman accused. “In this case, we had been informed that the victim apparently did not need any assistance from a lady officer,” said an officer.

After reaching the police station, the student lodged a complaint against the youth, a resident of Canal West Road. He has been arrested and booked for outrage of modesty.

Arrested

A 20-year-old college student, Suman Mishra, was arrested on Thursday afternoon for allegedly assaulting a sales tax officer in Entally.