IMPHAL, December 5: A student from the State, who went missing on November 29 after being allegedly threatened by five people on a running train, died at a hospital in Odisha.
The deceased student has been identified as L Poumai, 23 from Purul, Khabung Karong village in Senapati district.
His family claimed that he could have been pushed out of the running train by goons leading to his death.
L. Poumai boarded Dibrugarh-Bangalore City Express (train number 15902) from Dimapur, Nagaland, on November 27 night towards his destination Bangalore. He made a distress call to his family members in Manipur at around 3 pm on November 29, complaining that five persons had threatened him and even said that they got angry on seeing his face, according to a source.
The source informed he last spoke to his elder brother Stephen at 4.55 pm of the day wherein he told his brother that he was not even allowed to move by the gang of five people. His mobile phone was switched off thereafter.
The train reached Bangalore on November 30 as scheduled but Poumai was found missing. An FIR was filed at Bangalore Railway Police Station on December 1 and investigation was initiated by the police, it said.
While waiting for Bangalore police’s first update on the incident scheduled for December 5, president of Poumai Students’ Union Bangalore received a call on December 3 evening that L. Poumai had died and was asked to claim the dead body from Capital Hospital Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, according to the source.
The call to claim the dead body came almost five days after the victim was found despite documents like Aadhar card and driving licence are with the victim which the police have access too, according to the source.
Meanwhile, police have claimed in their report that Poumai had committed suicide by hanging. Local newspapers of Odisha published stories on December 2 claiming that the victim was found on November 29 after jumping off a train and admitted to a hospital with minor injuries but escaped the hospital on December 1 and killed himself by hanging with his shirt tied to the branch of a guava tree inside the compound of a government official.
The reports said added that a couple going on a morning walk spotted him and alerted the police.
However, family of the victim has claimed that the incident is a hate crime and that L. Poumai died after being pushed off the running train after robbing him of all his belongings including mobile phone .
They claimed that authorities are trying to cover up the brutal crime with fabricated stories, questioning why authorities took almost five days to inform them of the incident. They also alleged that there could have been a ploy to cover up the inhuman crime but couldn’t after a FIR was filed.
Suspecting foul play on the death, the deceased’s family questioned why didn’t the police contact family and friends of the victim when they found him on November 29 with the help of information provided in his Aadhar Card and driving licence recovered from him.
They also questioned why it took almost four days to inform the victim’s family, saying that the police could have informed Senapati DC, SP or the State government.
How can Poumai possibly hang himself to death on a small branch of guava tree that clearly can’t hold his weight and when his feet are firmly grounded?, the family asked.
The family of the victim also claimed that some forces are trying to victimise the victim with fabricated stories and are taking up the case seriously to ensure that people from north east travelling by train don’t face such inhuman incident in the future.
Several organisations in the State have expressed their support to fight for justice to the incident.