TIRUPATHUR: A 30-year-old man from Vellore was arrested for allegedly raping and attempting to murder pregnant woman by pushing off moving train on Thursday.
The accused, identified as K. Heamaraj from KV Kuppam, Vellore, reportedly targeted the woman in the ladies' coach while the train was moving from Jolarpet to Latheri.
According to railway police sources, the victim, a resident of Tiruppur who works in a garment manufacturing company, was traveling to Chittoor to meet her mother. She boarded the Tirupathi Intercity Express on Thursday morning in a general ladies' compartment. Initially, there were seven other female passengers in the coach, but they all alighted at Jolarpet.
Police sources revealed that the accused, Heamaraj, who already has a criminal record involving robbery and harassment of women under railway police jurisdiction in 2022, entered the ladies' coach after the other passengers had left. When the pregnant woman warned him that he should not be in the ladies' compartment, he allegedly claimed he would alight at the next station. However, he soon began misbehaving with her.
The accused then pushed the pregnant woman from the moving train near Latheri in Vellore and fled the scene.
A railway gangman later spotted the injured woman and rushed her to the Government Medical College and Hospital in Vellore, where she is currently undergoing treatment.
The railway police personnel arrested on Thursday night arrested Heamaraj.
An FIR has been lodged against him under sections 115(2), 64 r/w 62, 74, and 109(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women (TNPHW) Act, 2002. Further investigations are underway.