UP murders
They were on their way to Motihari from Amritsar, according to an officer.
A case of murder has been registered against the girls’ uncle, Iqbal, and his friend Izhar. Police were looking for the children’s father, Iddu.
Investigators are trying to establish the motive shrouding the horrific crime and a railway police team is expected to reach Motihari to locate the family and relatives.
Hindustan Times was not able to contact the family for their side of the story.
Sisters Samina and Algun, aged four and nine, survived the fall. All three surviving sisters are admitted to hospital.
Police believe the mother was the first to be pushed out as the train crossed Maigalganj and approached Sitapur. All the children were thrown out after the train crossed Sitapur, police said.
Bihar’s East Champaran police superintendent Upendra Kumar Sharma said: “The girls and their mother lived at Jhhakra village of West Champaran district. Their maternal uncle, Mohammad Imran, is being questioned by West Champaran police.”
The family is from a village under Phadpur police station of Motihari, Sharma said.
Algun, who suffered multiple fractures in her hand and hip joint, is the only sister able to speak to investigators.
“Algun is not old enough to provide information. Initially, she blamed her father and later said her maternal uncle threw them out of the moving train,” said Binod Kumar Singh, the railway police inspector general for Lucknow.
The girl also blamed her uncle’s friend. She told police they were four sisters and two brothers. The whereabouts of the boys is not known, an officer said.
Police are trying to ascertain how many of the family were travelling together.
Investigators hope the eldest sister, Rabina, admitted to the trauma centre at King George’s Medical University in Lucknow, will be able to give crucial information.
“The train was running three hours behind schedule on Monday and we are yet to find out how no one in the general coach noticed when the woman and her daughters were pushed off at different locations,” VK Maurya, station officer of Sitapur GRP.
(With inputs from HTC Motihari)
The “discrimination” between Aadhaar holders and those without it was strongly opposed in the court, prompting the bench to ask Venugopal to reconsider its proposal.
“Can we say you (government) will take no coercive action till March 31?” the court asked the attorney general who gave a verbal assurance, which did not satisfy the petitioners. He was then asked to come back to court on Monday with a response.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, lawyer for one of the petitioners, contended the note meant Aadhaar holders would be forced to part with their bank and mobile phone details. A sizeable section of the population has Aadhaar but many people are apprehensive about linking it to bank accounts and mobile phone numbers, he said.
He referred to government promises given to the court in past that Aadhaar would not be mandatory, despite which, he argued, Aadhaar continued to “spread”.
He added t hat petitions against Aadhaar have been “crying for a hearing” in SC since 2014.
He reminded the court that the attorney general had agreed for a hearing in November.
Venugopal said the government-appointed expert committee on Data Protection Law headed by former SC judge, Justice BN Srikrishna, has started working towards a robust data protection law as the top court suggested in its judgment on the right to privacy.
The committee is also considering changes in the Aadhaar Act of 2016 and the Information Technology Act of 2000. A final version of the law will be available by February 2018, due to which the government has proposed to extend the deadline for Aadhaar linking, he said.
Senior advocate Arvind Datar — appearing for one of the petitioners — repeatedly urged the government to make it categorical that nobody would be coerced to link Aadhaar.