Helpline saves woman from 4 drunk men in train compartment

Timely call to the women’s helpline saved a 32-year-old nurse from being molested by a group of four drunk men, including a CRPF constable, in a train compartment where she was the lone female passenger.

The helpline staff, which received the distress call, alerted the Yeshwantpur railway police, who waited for the train to arrive and nabbed the culprits. The incident happened on January 15, 2017, on the Karnataka Sampark Kranti Express bound for Bengaluru. The nurse, whose identity is withheld, had boarded the train at Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station in Delhi and was headed for Bengaluru.

Sexual innuendos
It was around 10 pm when the train, plying via Kacheguda, crossed Yelahanka and was 15-20 minutes from Yeshwantpur. Seeing that she was travelling alone, the men, including the CRPF constable, came up to her and sat next to her. They then started making sexual innuendos at her. The nurse panicked after realising that she was the lone woman in the S4 compartment.

Action in 20 minutes
But the gritty woman quickly took out her phone and called 1091, the women’s helpline. The helpline personnel who answered her call took her details and alerted the Yeshwantpur railway police to stand by for the train in less than 20 minutes.

As the train chugged into the station, police rushed into the compartment and nabbed the CRPF man, but others managed to escape with the crowd, said Rani Shetty, coordinator, Parihar, Vanitha Sahayavani.

“We asked the woman to make a complaint, but she decided not to lodge one as the CRPF constable fell at her feet and addressed her as mother. He said he had divorced his wife recently and promised not to repeat such an act,” a police officer quoted him as saying.

The nurse was travelling to Bengaluru to meet a doctor who had promised her a job at the hospital where he works.

Popular helpline
The women’s helpline has become quite popular among women in Bengaluru. That is because a large number of women who come here for employment or to study, stay alone or live with their friends.

With their support system being fragile, they keep this helpline handy so that they can call whenever they are in distress.

Homemakers facing domestic violence also make use of the helpline, Shetty said.
DH News Service