MOGA (Web Desk) – A 14-year-old girl died and her mother is in hospital with severe injuries after they were thrown off a moving bus in Punjab for resisting molestation attempts by a group of men.
Three persons, including the bus conductor and cleaner, have been arrested and booked for murder.
The teenager, her mother and younger brother boarded the private bus from their village in Moga district, to visit a gurdwara Wednesday evening. Soon, about half a dozen men had surrounded the girl and her mother.
“They kept abusing us. No one helped. They first pushed my daughter off the bus, then me,” the girl’s mother, who was unconscious for nearly 12 hours at a district hospital, said on Thursday.
The girl died on the road; hours had passed before they could get any medical help.
The harassment allegedly began the moment the family got on the bus.
“The conductor refused to give my daughter a ticket,” said the woman, 38.
Around 10 km into the journey, a passenger started misbehaving with the girl. When her mother tried to stop him, she was attacked too. The bus conductor, instead of helping them, allegedly also joined in and started abusing both mother and daughter.
In desperation, the woman ran to the driver and begged him to stop the bus, but he allegedly ignored her and drove even faster.
The harassment continued until the bus slowed down at a turn. The woman alleges that she and her daughter were pushed off the bus by the conductor.
The incident has taken a political turn with opposition parties alleging a cover-up attempt. The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have alleged that the bus is operated by a company owned by the family of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
“Such incidents won’t be tolerated. We will find out who owns the bus,” said union minister Harsimrat Kaur, Mr Badal’s daughter-in-law.
The horrific gang-rape and torture of a young woman on a moving bus in Delhi in December, 2012, became the pivot of major changes in laws on rape and soul searching on crimes against women.
