MUMBAI: Four labourers travelling on the Konkan Kanya Express from Thane to Margao in search of jobs were beaten up and looted by some men in Raigad district on Tuesday night after being identified as North Indians.
The victims, from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, were going to Margao to find jobs in a steel plant. They were travelling in the general compartment of the Konkan Kanya Express from Thane. The train runs between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Margao in Goa.
Six people boarded the train with the migrants at Thane. After the train crossed Panvel station late at night, they swung into action and started asking passengers which state they hailed from. After identifying Ghanshyam Ramjiyavan Saroj, 56, Raghunath Kamla Singh, 20, Nandlal and Dabbu as men of North Indian origin, they beat them up, snatched their valuables, and locked them inside a toilet in the running train.
In their complaint to the Government Railway Police (GRP), the four men said that the suspects started abusing them, saying it was because of migrants like them that they (the attackers) were not getting jobs. Thereafter, they forced the four men from their seats and locked them up in a toilet.
The men first filed a complaint with the Railway Protection Force (RPF), which informed the GRP control room, after which the victims were advised to file a complaint at the nearest local police station at Nagothane in Raigad district.
After registering the case there, the victims were diverted to the GRP station at Thane because the attackers too had boarded the train there.
“As the victims boarded the train at Thane, we asked our personnel to register a case there for further investigation,” said KP Raghuvanshi, additional director-general of police (railways).
A Thane GRP officer said the attackers were yet to be identified. A case of extortion, rioting, wrongful confinement, causing hurt, and unlawful assembly has been registered against them.
