Sexual violence in Assam woman’s train death case ruled out

Metro India News | Srikakulam

The Andhra Pradesh police probing the mysterious death of an Assam woman whose body was found by the railway track in Srikakulam district last week, said the post-mortem report has ruled out physical and sexual violence. Himsri Boro’s body was found around on October 7 near Penubarthi village, on the right side of the tracks between Vizianagaram and Srikakulam Road. She had boarded the delayed Vivek Express on October 6.

“Physical violence and sexual violence is ruled out as per PM (post mortem) report. We could establish that she (Boro) was standing at the gate (of the train coach). The reason being she boarded the train at the last minute,” Srikakulam superintendent of police KV Maheshwar Reddy told PTI.The SP said the train had already started moving when Boro boarded it and the compartment was already packed with passengers, more than 100 people.

Due to the rush in the train, he said Boro couldn’t move further inside the coach and had to remain near the entry. He also dismissed social media claims that the compartment had only male passengers, saying there were both male and female passengers. “Now we have to establish whether it was an accidental fall or was there anything else. We have to establish and we are probing,” said Reddy.

An Andhra Pradesh government release on October 9 said a fellow passenger had claimed that Boro had “fallen off the running train.” Further, the SP said claims of Boro making a distress call complaining of some boys harassing her was also not true.

However, he said Boro had messaged a friend that she couldn’t manage to find a seat as the train was crowded with a lot of male passengers and that she was uncomfortable.

“(In the) messages or in (the) video there was nothing to establish that some abuse has happened. Nothing of that sort. We have sent her mobile also to the forensics,” said Reddy, observing that Boro’s phone was found near her body.

According to Police, Boro hurriedly boarded a general compartment to travel home because she had to appear for an examination. Further, police are also probing why nobody stopped the train by pulling the chain if Boro’s had fallen off accidentally.

“I have the same question. Whether it was an accidental fall or if at all there was any abuse, both cases somebody should have reported,” said the SP. He added that even a minor argument in a heavily crowded train during the night would have alerted passengers and prompted someone to intervene.

Two passengers, a man and a woman, who got off the train somewhere in West Bengal said that they had heard passengers in the train talk about some girl falling down from the train, said Reddy.

That’s why we are contacting all the passengers, he said, adding that it will take some time as there were a lot of unreserved passengers.

“That is why we are not concluding it, we need to probe,” Reddy added.