SILCHAR: Just a day after a woman from Guwahati was allegedly molested by the train ticket examiner (TTE) on the Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express , a large group of ticketless vendors threatened a woman passenger, they would rape her if she tried to visit the toilet on the Lumding-Silchar Cachar Express under the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) on Monday night. Seven passengers who raised their voice against the misbehaviour of the vendors were injured when the latter roughed them up. The victim is a nurse by profession.

Sources said a group of 25 ticketless vendors who were on their way to Mahur in Dima Hasao district were occupying sleeper coach No. 1 of Down 15691 Cachar Express at Lumding station illegally, causing inconvenience to passengers with valid tickets.

The woman in her FIR filed at the Government Railway Police (GRP) station at Badarpur on Tuesday morning said she had come from Dimapur and boarded the Cachar Express at Lumding. However, she and her co-passengers found that most of the seats and the floor of the coach were occupied by the vendors with bags full of vegetables and other items. She somehow managed to sit on her seat amid the chaos.

"The train left Lumding at around 8.30pm. After some time, I visited the toilet with a lot of inconvenience, because the toilet doors were blocked by the vendors and their bags. When I was returning to my seat, the vendors passed abusive comments. They warned that they would rape me if I go to the toilet again," the FIR read.

Sources said other passengers, particularly members of a Muslim spiritual group named Tablighi, who were on their way to Badarpur, protested against the misbehaviour of the vendors. However, the vendors went on the rampage and beat up the protesting passengers, injuring seven, two of them seriously.

The passengers alleged that there were no railway police on the train to protect them. At 11.30pm when the train reached Mahur station, the vendors got off the train.

The passengers filed a complaint with the railway authorities only after the train arrived at Lower Haflong station at 1am on Tuesday, after which a few Railway Protection Force (RPF) men were deployed in the coach.

After the Cachar Express reached Badarpur at 6am, hundreds of people, who came to know of the incident at night, blocked the train. They sent the injured passengers to the Srigauri government hospital.

The injured were identified as Safiqur Rahman (25), Niaz Uddin (52), a teacher of Badarpur Deorail Senior Madrassa, Masum Jakaria (21), Aktar Uddin (38), Abdul Aziz (34), Ansar Uddin (54) and Karim Uddin (28) - all are residents of Badarpur locality in Karimganj district.Safiqur and Niaz were sent to Silchar Medical College Hospital as their condition was serious.

Area manager of NFR (Badarpur) Narayan Harikumar rushed to the spot to negotiate with the agitators who stopped trains on all the routes including Silchar-Lumding, Silchar-Agartala, Silchar-Bhairabi and Silchar-Jiribam. The protesters manhandled the area manager and he sustained minor injuries. Police had to rescue the NFR official.

The blockade continued till 4.30pm and was withdrawn only after the area manager announced a probe into the incident by a committee to be constituted within 24 hours. The committee will submit its report within a week, he said. Train services resumed only after 6 pm.

Meanwhile, NFR authorities suspended two TTEs, Dulal Chandra Roy and Raben Das, for allegedly allowing the vendors to board the train without tickets.

Police on Tuesday also arrested two of the accused vendors from Mahur. Police are searching for the rest of the vendors, who are on the run.

The agitators said they had suspended the agitation only for 24 hours. If the erring TTEs and vendors are not booked in this period, they would resume their stir by blocking trains on all routes. The agitators also put up a blockade on the NH-37 at Badarpur from 6am to 11.30am during the day in protest against the incident, stalling traffic on the highway.

