Uttar Pradesh: A freight train guard who had reached the Etawah train station to sign for his duty like any other day, ended up becoming the saviour for two girls, as he helped them renunite with their families, following their 140-km-long escape from stalkers in Uttar Pardesh's Hathras.
Two girls, including a minor, boarded a train at Hathras station to escape from some stalkers and travelled about 140 km away from their city to Etawah, to save themselves.
A railway official told news agency PTI that the guard (also known as train manager), Ravineet Arya of the Tundla headquarters, was on his way to sign on for his duty at Etawah station on August 3 at 11 pm, when he found the two girls looking distressed, sitting at one end of the platform bench.
"Arya asked them if they needed any help. They told him that they were the residents of Hathras and were returning from a tuition centre when some anti-social elements started stalking them," the official said.
The official said that the girls were very scared and when they found Hathras station was nearby they hurriedly entered the station, and boarded a train to hide themselves in the crowd. However, the train departed within a few minutes.
Even though they contacted their families through their mobile phones from the moving train, their family members could not understand how to handle the situation and where to ask their daughters to get off from the train.
"Though the train stopped at small stations, they didn’t disembark because some passengers who were sympathetic to the girls advised them to get off at Etawah which is a big station having better passenger amenities and help," another railway official told PTI.
After getting off at Etawah junction, the girls were afraid to talk to anyone and "sat on a platform bench completely lost". This is when the train guard noticed them and approached to help them.
Thereafter, he took them to the station superintendent who further got the railway police and the child welfare committee (CWC) involved in the matter. The team then spoke to the girls' families in order to reunite them.
The police involved CWC as one of the girls was a minor, and needed to be taken care of till her parents reached the station to pick her up.
Lauding the guard for his quick intervention in the matter, the railway official further said: "The girls were from two different families which drove from Hathras to Etawah to take them back safely."
It is, however, unknown as to whether or not the stalkers have been identified and detained.