Woman loses arm after being pushed off Mumbai local train by 53-year-old molester | Mumbai news

A 20-year-old railway commuter lost her left arm after she was allegedly molested and pushed onto the railway tracks at Naigaon station. The incident occurred on November 4, after the woman confronted the 53-year-old man, Jitendra Hirmukhe, for molesting her while they were travelling in the handicapped compartment of a Virar-bound local train, police said.

Railway officials said that the incident took place around 4 pm near the Bilaspur railway station. (Unsplash/Representative Image)Hirmukhe was arrested on Wednesday from his home in Naigaon, produced in court on Thursday, and remanded in police custody.

According to the Bhayander Government Railway Police (GRP), the woman and her fiance both worked with Flipkart and lived in Naigaon, while her mother lived in Malad. On November 4, she reached Borivali railway station around 7.30pm and boarded the handicapped compartment of a Virar-bound train as the ladies compartment was overcrowded.

“Hirmukhe, who was travelling in the same compartment, began touching her inappropriately once the train passed Mira Road. When she confronted him at Naigaon station, he pushed her out of the train, alighted from the train himself and continued arguing with her on the platform,” an officer from the Bhayandar GRP station told Hindustan Times.

Hirmukhe flew into a rage when the woman slapped him and pushed her again, this time onto the tracks, in the space between two compartments of a local train. The train started moving even as she was trying to climb up onto the platform, crushing her left arm beneath its wheels, the officer said.

Speaking to HT, the woman’s fiance said that though many bystanders were present on the platform while she was being molested and assaulted, none stepped forward to help her, even after she began bleeding profusely. Officers from the Railway Protection Force (RPF) subsequently reached the spot and took her to a Vasai hospital, where they simply dressed her wound, the fiance said.

“She could have died but the hospital did nothing,” he alleged.

The woman was later shifted to Cooper Hospital, where doctors had to amputate her left arm beneath the elbow due to the severity of her injuries.

In a video posted on social media, the woman said she was the sole bread winner for her family and would not be able to work further after losing an arm. “I have lost everything, I want justice,” she said in the video that went viral.

“Since the accused had covered his face with a handkerchief while leaving the platform after the incident, it was difficult to identify him. But we traced and identified him by going through CCTV footage from other parts of the station and outside the station. On Wednesday, we arrested him from his house in Naigaon,” the officer quoted earlier said.

Hirmukhe has been booked under sections 74 (assault or criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 109 (attempt to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, police said.

The alleged assault on the 20-year-old woman on November 4 was the fourth incident of violence on local trains in the city this year.

On January 24, a junior college teacher, Alok Singh, was stabbed to death on board a local train by a fellow commuter following a petty dispute.

On June 23, a 22-year-old man, Mayank Lohar, was stabbed to death inside the first-class compartment of a local train following an altercation with fellow passenger, Roshan Suvarna, over closing the coach’s doors to protect against a heavy downpour. While Lohar and other passengers wanted the door to be shut, Suvarna, who was inebriated, wanted to enjoy the rain. When the argument escalated, he allegedly pulled out a knife from his backpack and repeatedly stabbed Lohar on the floor of the compartment.

On August 20, a 62-year-old disabled man, Cajetan Denis Pires, was pushed to his death from a moving train between Mahim and Bandra stations. The incident occurred after Pires noticed an able-bodied man, Amajad Safruddin Shaikh, seated in the coach reserved for persons with disabilities and demanded that he vacate the seat.