The High Court came down heavily on Soumya’s co-passengers for the indifferent attitude shown towards a helpless girl who was thrown out of a moving train.
“Had a helping hand been extended to lift the girl from danger on hearing her cries for help, the untoward incident could have been avoided,” the Bench observed while confirming the death sentence of Govindachamy in Soumya murder case.
“Facts are stranger than fiction. Gone are the days of men rising to the occasion as heroes or warriors to save fellow human beings from danger. The insensitivity to respond and selfishness to be non-responsive on part of fellow passengers of a running train to extend a helping hand has resulted in a grave tragedy,” the court observed.
It also wondered “how cruel those people could be who dissuaded a willing person to respond to such cries for help”. A resident of Konichira, who was also travelling in the passenger train, had heard the cries of a lady from the ladies compartment. Though he wanted to pull the alarm chain to stop the train, he was dissuaded by a middle-aged man, who was standing at the door at the right rear-end of the general compartment.
The middle-aged man told him that the girl had jumped out and escaped. When the Konichira-native repeated the request to pull the alarm chain, that man told him not to disturb other passengers and warned him to not drag others ‘unnecessarily’ to court, the verdict pointed out.
The Bench observed that the foremost duty of every member of the public is to extend a helping hand to the needy and to hear their cries with an open heart so as to lift them from danger.
Inaction on part of fellow passengers in the other compartment, who remained as mute spectators, sounds more cruel than the brutality committed by the rapist. Such continued silence will pave way for such criminals to continue such the crimes according to their whims and fancies, it,” it said.
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