RailEnquiry

MUMBAI: Three unidentified boys tried to rob a woman journalist at knife-point in a Harbour line train on Tuesday afternoon, after she warned them not to perform dangerous stunts.

"It was a traumatic experience; the image of one of the boys charging at me with a knife will haunt me for a long time. The boy brandishing the knife was barely 12 years old; the other two were 15 to 16 years old. I never imagined that somebody could make such a bold robbery bid in a moving train," said Bhavna Sharma, who works with the a media professional with the regional press and a linguistic expert with the Censor Board. She did not suffer any injuries.Sharma boarded the first-class ladies compartment of the 3.55pm CST-bound train from Wadala Road station. "There were two other women in the compartment, and they both got off at Cotton Green station," she said. At Cotton Green, the three boys got in the compartment on noticing that Sharma was alone. "I was sitting near the window; they were standing on the footboard and dangerously hanging out of the train. I politely asked them to refrain from doing such stunts, but one of the boys said that they had enough experience of travelling like this," she said. "As the stations passed, the boys kept staring at me. I overheard them planning to pull my gold chain. When they moved towards me to sit in front of me, I got scared. But I sternly told them to get off the next station and get into the adjoining men's first-class compartment."

Suddenly, one of the boys whipped out a knife and came charging towards Sharma. "I immediately removed my sandal to defend myself, and started screaming for help. A few youngsters in the adjoining men's compartment heard me scream and rushed towards the partition between the two coaches. But the boys hid the knife and pretended like nothing had happened," she said. They jumped off the train at Masjid station.

Sharma got off at CST and registered a complaint with the Government Railway Police (GRP). The CST GRP will forward the complaint to their counterparts in Wadala, as the incident took place in their jurisdiction. "We will call Sharma to the police station on Wednesday, and then decide what action should be taken," said JitendraRathod, senior inspector, WadalaGRP.

Alok Bohra, senior divisional security commissioner of the Mumbai division, said, "We will hand over the CCTV footages from all the stations between Wadala and Masjid to the GRP."