It was a juvenile who snatched bag from woman who fell under train

Sanjay Kishore, Chief Security Officer, Railway Protection Force, said the boy had spent time in a juvenile home in the past after being apprehended in a robbery case last year.

It was a 16-year-old boy who had snatched a woman’s bag, causing her to fall from a moving train and die on the railway tracks near Old Delhi Railway Station on Sunday morning, the RPF said on Tuesday.

Sanjay Kishore, Chief Security Officer, Railway Protection Force, said the boy had spent time in a juvenile home in the past after being apprehended in a robbery case last year.

The boy and his adult associate were nabbed within 48 hours after the 43-year-old woman bled to death in front of her helpless son. The woman, Sudhir Bansal, had lost her hand and leg and lay on the railway tracks even as her son pleaded with passersby for help.

Sanjay Kishore, Chief Security Officer, Railway Protection Force, said the boy had spent time in a juvenile home in the past after being apprehended in a robbery case last year.

He had come out of the juvenile justice home and continued committing crime. “The two accused live in jhuggis in the railway colony near the tracks where the woman died. Their modus operandi was to target passengers in the trains passing through that area,” said Kishore.

The officer said that on Sunday morning, the two accused took position on the either side of the tracks as the Haridwar Mail crawled towards the Old Delhi Railway Station.

“The boy had taken position on the side where the woman was standing near train’s gate. When the boy tried to snatch her purse, she tried to pull it back. That caused the woman to fall from the train. She landed on the tracks below and was run over by the train,” said Kishore.

The RPF had formed a special team to nab the snatchers who caused the gruesome death. “We had suspected it to be the handiwork of the youths living in the railway colony nearby. Snatchers from Sadar Bazar neighbourhoods (also notorious for such crimes) were unlikely to travel so far,” said an investigator.

Local intelligence helped the RPF team nab the 18-year-old suspect by Sunday evening. At his instance, his 16-year-old associate was apprehended on Monday night. The woman’s snatched hand bag, her documents and a little of the Rs 5,000 cash, have also been recovered.

The victim was accompanying her 19-year-old son, Gaurav, to Delhi to help him with his college admission formalities. Gaurav was to attend his first day of BSc (Honours) at DU’s Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences on Monday, but ended up cremating his mother instead.