In the early hours of November 5, around 4 am, Christina (name changed), who was on board the Kochuveli-Mysore Express, felt someone touching her inappropriately. Startled, she woke up to find a man rushing away. She had the presence of mind to quickly follow him and confront him. And while she and her friends managed to catch hold of the molester and tried to bring him to justice, they faced a major hurdle in the form of the police. The Railway Protection Force, Government Railway Police, and the Tirupattur police allegedly evaded and blocked the process of justice – and allegedly even said that sexual harassment was not ‘important enough’ to stop a train.
Speaking to TNM, Christina details what happened that day. The 28-year-old marketing executive called up her friends Dinesh and Manav (names changed) who were traveling on the same train when her molester tried to get away. “He acted confused, and started walking away while I was talking to him. By then, I raised an alarm. Some passengers saw what was happening but went back to sleep,” she recalls. By the time her friends came, “He started apologising even before we asked him anything,” Christina’s friend Dinesh tells TNM.
Unable to find an official on board, including the Ticket Train Examiner (TTE), they held the man, and decided to lodge a complaint at the next station – Tiruppatur in Tamil Nadu. Once the train halted there, Christina and Dinesh got down along with the perpetrator, while Manav stayed back on the train. “The train was to leave the station in three minutes, and we had to hand him over to the police, file a complaint and leave within those three minutes,” Christina says. But the way things unfolded, that seemed impossible.
The station master was not at his office, and so they decided to call the police. But before the police could arrive, the train started moving. Manav then quickly pulled the chain – which prompted the arrival of the Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF). But instead of helping Christina, they allegedly tried everything they could to make her go away.
Sexual harassment not ‘important enough’ to stop a train?
Rewinding to the moment in the train when Christina and her friends were confronting the perpetrator Sunish, who was drunk, Dinesh recalls, “On seeing the commotion, a 20-year-old woman from Kerala approached us and said that the man touched her inappropriately as well.” When the GRP and RPF reached the spot after Manav pulled the chain, Christina and the 20-year-old informed the officials about the sexual harassment at the hands of Sunish.
“Instead of focusing on the incident, one of the officials started blaming Manav for pulling the chain. He even said that sexual harassment is not a reason enough to pull the chain,” Christina alleges.
After Christina and her friends explained the situation further, the GRP decided to take Sunish into custody, around 5 am. “I told the officials I would stay back, file a complaint and see this through. However, the GRP officials said my presence was not required, and asked me to leave as it was an ‘untimely hour’. They said my friends can file a complaint for me,” she says. She then boarded the train and left for Bengaluru, while her friends, Manav and Dinesh, went to the Tirupattur police station.
Why don’t cops want to file complaints?
However, once they reached, the officials did not let them file a complaint. “They downplayed the entire sexual harassment incident and tried to talk us out of lodging a complaint. They kept repeating that it would be a traumatic experience for the victim, and that she should be ready to go through it. They even asked us to call her parents, which we were ready to do, although she is an adult. Yet, they refused to take our complaint,” Dinesh says.
Later, both GRP and RPF officials allegedly kept insisting that to file a complaint, including an online complaint of sexual harassment, the victim’s presence was required. “They were the ones who asked her to leave, saying it was an ‘untimely hour’. This, despite my friend telling them that she was ready to stay back,” says Dinesh. One of the women officials allegedly told Dinesh that since the man was drunk, the case won’t hold in court as it would be concluded that he was not in his senses.
An RPF official later spoke to the Sunish’s other victim, the 20-year-old woman, who, by then, was on the train to Bengaluru. Dinesh alleged that the official, while speaking to her over the phone, tried to scare her from filing a complaint since she was a college student. She eventually backed out.
“When the official said the 20-year-old did not want to file a complaint, we reminded him that he had to take Christina’s complaint, to which he feigned ignorance. He did not file the complaint, and instead chose to book us for pulling the chain,” Dinesh says.
Incidentally, the officials allegedly found the copy of an older chargesheet against Sunish in his own bag. “He was charged with indecent exposure earlier as well by the railway police, in another case,” Dinesh says.
Finally, a complaint filed – but what about justice?
Based on Christina’s complaint, the Bengaluru Cantonment Station registered a case under section 354A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code, and said the case was transferred to the Jolarpettai Railway Police Station in Tamil Nadu based on jurisdiction. According to the FIR filed at Bangalore Cantonment Station, Christina “did not have time” to file a complaint with the local police in Tamil Nadu. Christina refutes this. “Every detail in the FIR registered at the Bangalore Cantonment Police is correct, except one aspect – I could not file a sexual harassment complaint with the railway police in Tamil Nadu, not due to lack of time, but because I was made to board the train and leave,” Christina says.
Sunish was let off the same day due to lack of communication between the two police stations. Meanwhile, Manav, who pulled the chain, eventually had to accept the charges against him, and paid a fine at a court in Salem on Tuesday.
While registering the FIR, the police in Tamil Nadu did not corroborate Christina, Dinesh and Manav’s version, and hence it was not included in the FIR. When TNM spoke to the RPF official who was at the station when the incident took place, he claimed that neither the woman nor the men came forward to give a complaint. “If they had given, I would have taken action. The perpetrator was let off because there was no complaint to detain him,” he tells TNM.
Read: Bengaluru woman chases and nabs man who molested her in moving train
Know your rights
It was only when filing a complaint in Bengaluru that Christina realised her rights: that sexual harassment cases can be filed without the victim, they can be filed online, parents’ presence is not required if the victim is an adult, and that being drunk is of no consequence to the crime.
“The entire ordeal has been upsetting. When I was going after him, I got no help from other passengers. I was able to get help immediately because I was with my friends. Even at the railway station, the officials were trying to talk us out of filing a complaint against a man who also had harassed another girl on the same train. He also has a chargesheet against him. That is upsetting. As a woman, it makes one think twice about travelling alone,” Christina says.
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Source: The News Minute