A sense of disquiet, if not fear, gripped the women commuting in a fast local headed to CST from Kasara on Thursday afternoon when a disruptive youth hopped into the compartment reserved for them despite their objections, saying: "Am I going to rape you?"
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The man, Dombivali resident Devendra Ghas, 24, went on to comport himself crudely when the men travelling in the adjacent compartment intervened verbally in the running train. He began arguing with them and defiantly sat next to a woman, putting his feet up on the seat in front of him.
He was eventually handed over to the Thane Railway Protection Force and charged with creating a nuisance.
The incident took place when the CST bound local arrived at Dombivali station at 2.51 pm. Ghas boarded the women's coach at the front of the train as soon as the train started moving ahead. The stunned women raised objections to his entry. But he retorted, "Main kya balatkar kar raha hoon?"
They tried calling up the railway helpline numbers stencilled inside their coach, they said, but the calls went unanswered.
When commuters in the adjoining bogey asked Ghas to get down at the next station, he rebelled. Not only did he begin bickering with them but he also seated himself nonchalantly next to a woman, stretching out his legs on to the opposite seat.
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As the train moved onward, the men insisted that he get out of the women's compartment. So he alighted at the next station, which was Diva, and entered the men's coach, where he continued squabbling with the passengers, telling them that they should watch out since he was drunk and therefore wouldn't think before doing anything.
(A medical test done later could not clearly establish whether he was drunk, but he admitted to it.)
By now the train had reached Thane and passengers, realising that Ghas was beyond reason, decided to take him to the RPF. They took him off the train and handed him over to the police officials, who arrested him under section 145 of the Railways Act, 1989. The section deals with passengers behaving indecently or using obscene language. Ghas was also booked under section 162 if the Act for entering a carriage reserved for females.
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The cops said he was travelling without a ticket, which further attracted a charge under section 147. Ghas's father secured his release later on a personal bond. He will be produced in court today. He faces a penalty of Rs 500 or a maximum jail term of six months.
Asked to comment on the incident, Central Railway's chief public relations officer Narendra Patil said continual announcements are made at stations asking men not to travel in the women's compartments. In addition, the RPF has intensified its drive to nab such offenders with the aim to discourage the breach.
A senior railway official said that from April 2016, to March 2017, more than 1,000 men have been booked for boarding women's coaches on the Central Railway.