Madhupur (Jharkhand): A 14 year old girl was gang raped by a group of two armymen after being forced to consume alcohol by a third jawan in a military reserved coach of the Howrah-Amritsar Express on Sunday evening.
The victim, in her statement to the RPF, said that she had boarded the train from Howrah Junction.
In the train compartment, she alleged that she was first forced to drink alcohol by a jawan and then raped by two others, according to RPF sub-inspector P Jani.
He said, they got a message from RPF Howrah, which received a complaint from the girl's father that his daughter has allegedly 'fled' and travelling by the train.
Accoding to TOI, the girl had run away from home on Sunday. Her family informed police who alerted the railways. The officials at Howrah station pulled off a near miracle — they identified the girl out of tens of thousands of faces captured on CCTV. She was spotted boarding the military coach of Amritsar Express that had left Howrah at 1.50pm.
GRP officials at Jasidih were faxed the girl's photograph and ordered to rescue her.
After receiving message, RPF raided the train when it reached Madhupur railway station in Jharkhand.
Permission was sought from the railways to detain it for seven minutes at Madhupur where GRP and RPF personnel started a coach-by-coach search around 8pm.
"The military coach was locked from inside and after a bit of a 'struggle', the RPF and GRP men were able to gain access.
The girl was found inside but not in a fully conscious state. She was being fed by an army jawan. RPF took him into custody. RPF men also videographed the Army personnel travelling in that bogie and sent back the footage to Madhupur
During questioning, the girl said she was forced to drink alcohol by three jawans and then raped by two of them," an RPF officer from Asansol division said.
The girl was in shock and needed counselling. Meanwhile, a medical examination had confirmed rape.
But by the time she identified the accused in the video clip and there was an attempt to arrest the accused, the train reached Sultanpur,UP ( Monday noon) and the accused were not found. The two accused are still absconding.
“We have arrested one Mandreesh Tripathi who had offered liquor to the minor,” said Madhupur GRP's officer in-charge, Arjun Tiwari. Sources said Tripathi has confessed he forced the minor to drink.
