RailEnquiry

The father of the Darjeeling lady who leapt out of a speeding train to stave off molesters today said he would henceforth not allow his daughter to venture out of her home in search of a job.“I will never allow my daughter to go outside for a job after what happened to her,” said the man, whose name The Telegraph is not disclosing to protect the identity of the woman. The lady is undergoing treatment at the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH).A soldier of the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles and a driver for a premier public school in Patna have been arrested on the charge of molesting the 35-year-old woman in an AC coach of the Delhi-bound Brahmaputra Mail on Thursday afternoon. Four jawans who were travelling with the arrested soldier have been made witnesses.Inspector-general (rail) Binay Kumar said the investigation in the case was almost complete and the chargesheet against the two accused — jawan Ramesh Kumar and his friend Dinesh Thongial — would be submitted in the court at the earliest.He said the woman had been handed over to her father, who arrived from Darjeeling today with a woman constable and two other policemen. “They will return to Darjeeling by a train in the night today,” he said, adding that the statements of the lady and her father have been recorded.Tears rolled down the face of the woman’s father when he met his traumatised daughter at the PMCH ward. The man, a tailor by profession, said his daughter had travelled to Delhi at least thrice before the tragic incident on Thursday. “She was working in Delhi for the past two-three years and used to come to Darjeeling from time to time,” he told The Telegraph.

The man said his daughter, the third of four children, had returned to Darjeeling from Delhi about a month ago. On Thursday, she had told the family that she was going to Delhi to resume duty in a private firm where she worked as a domestic help.

The woman, who has two sons aged 13 and eight years, jumped off the train between Ara and Karisath stations, 80km west of Patna, around 4pm on Thursday. Her tormentors had dragged her to a toilet in the AC 3-tier coach where they molested her. She managed to escape from their clutches and leapt on to the railway tracks where she was found in an unconscious state.

Her father, who is in his fifties, said he received the news about his daughter from a police official in the Darjeeling hills on Thursday evening. The policeman told him his daughter had met with an accident while travelling to Delhi.

The man admitted that his daughter was suffering from depression after separating from her husband, but scoffed at suggestions by a section of the police that she was “mentally unsound”.

“She is in a state of trauma now. Anyone who is in such a state would talk incoherently for a while. There is no problem with her,” he said.

He said his priority was to take his daughter back to Darjeeling and provide her better treatment.

Saurav Ghosh, a sub-inspector with Darjeeling police who has accompanied the woman’s father, said they would return by Capital Express on Saturday night.

Women constables deployed at the PMCH ward where the woman is undergoing treatment, said she started shouting on seeing a man. “It appears that she is frightened and shudders with fear on seeing any male,” a woman constable said.