Thiruvananthapuram: A decade after the brutal assault and murder of a woman travelling alone in a train coach in Kerala, the horror has been repeated with the consolation that this time the victim has survived.
This week, a 31-year-old woman fell off a moving train in a desperate attempt to escape from a theft and rape bid by an unidentified person near Mulanthuruthy. The victim, a state government employee working in Chengannur, suffered injuries on her head and body after the fall, and is undergoing treatment.
She was dropped at the Mulanthuruthy railway station by her husband and had boarded the Guruvayur-Punalur Express, a passenger train, around 8.45am.
Local reports quoting railway police force officials said that when the train began moving, a man came running and boarded the coach in which she was the lone passenger. Sensing alarm, the woman made a telephone call to her sister, saying a man had entered the coach and closed the door.
No further information could be given as the man then snatched her mobile phone and gold chain, threatening her with a screwdriver. He then dragged her towards the train’s toilet, and the woman in her attempt to resist him, went towards the door and held on to the metal bar of the door for a while before falling from the train.
When anxious family members tried reaching her, there was no response. The victim was still conscious after the fall and managed to give her home number to those who rushed to help her.
Two days after the fall, she is recuperating in hospital, and her condition is reportedly stable. Police are on the lookout for the suspect.
Horror repeated
The incident is a repeat of a similar incident in February 2011, in which case the 23-year-old victim, Soumya lost her life, too.
The case, now known as the Soumya murder case, had a similar setting with Soumya being the lone passenger in a ladies’ compartment, in which she was assaulted by Govindachami, a beggar from Tamil Nadu.
Prosecution argued that Soumya was assaulted by Govindachami who pushed her out of the Ernakulam-Shoranur passenger train and raped her and that she died of her injuries. He was the sole accused in the case that happened at Vallathol Nagar. Soumya succumbed to injuries at the Government Medical College, Thrissur on February 6, 2011.
Govindachami was handed the death penalty by the trial court, which was confirmed by a division bench of the Kerala High Court, but the Supreme Court later commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
A curative petition was then filed by the state government to reinstate the death penalty to Govindachami but the apex court rejected the position of the state government and Soumya’s family.
The brutality of the Soumya case had shocked Kerala society, and a near-repeat of the incident this week prompted several comments on social media calling for death penalty for Govindachami to deter others from similar crimes against women.
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