College student, 20, subjected to vicious ‘sexual assault’ by ragpicker inside an almost empty women’s compartment at 5.45 pm; other commuters chase, catch him
Pappu Gupta, the attacker
A 35-year-old ragpicker brutally assaulted a 20-year-old woman in the ladies’ coach of a local train while trying to snatch her purse. The survivor told mid-day the man tried to push her off the running train, and bit her lip and nose. Bleeding and in pain, she fought back and raised an alarm. In the meantime, a woman pulled the chain and as the train stopped, he jumped off. The men in the next compartment got off and nabbed him after a chase, and handed him over to the Churchgate GRP.
The 20-year-old student from south Mumbai boards the local at Prabhadevi station, at 5.30 pm on Monday, for Churchgate. She is travelling in the women’s compartment along with three co-passengers. As she is sitting by a window, a man boards the local at Charni Road station and sits opposite her
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Pappu Gupta, a resident of Goregaon, gets up and sits beside her. Spooked, the survivor gets up to go stand by the door when he grabs her bag, and says ‘baitho, baitho… kaha jaa rahi ho?’
She manages to get away from him, and stands near a co-passenger who was by the door
Gupta follows her and stands close to her. The woman and two others, scared, run to the other side of the compartment. He tries to push her off the train, but fails. He then pulls the student’s hair
She falls, and Gupta sits on her and bites her nose and upper lip. The survivor, who is now bleeding, grabs his head and bangs it on the iron rod installed at the door
Seeing the woman’s struggle, the co-passenger pulls the chain
As the train stops, Gupta grabs the backpack and the survivor’s mobile phone and jumps off. Passengers in the next compartment, who heard her cries for help, also jump off the train and start chasing him. Once on the tracks, Gupta picks up stones and start throwing them at the men following him
Undeterred, the passengers nab Gupta and thrash him, before handing him over the Churchgate GRP. Police book him under various sections of the IPC. While woman insists it was a brutal sexual assault, Senior Inspector Vijay Tayade said, “The intention behind the man’s act matters. It was only to rob the woman, and we have recorded her statement.”
5.30 pm
Time the student boarded the local train
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