Assam: Two women found strangled with ‘gamusa’ in train toilets

In two similar incidents that have left the Assam police baffled, bodies of two women were found in less than 24 hours from lavatories of different trains. In both cases, traditional towels, called “gamusa” in Assam, were found around the victim’s neck. On prior examination, it is being considered that the deaths have occured due to strangulation and the modus operandi of the two incidents have the police pondering over the idea that there might be a serial killer on the loose.

A student of the Assam Agricultural University in Jorhat was found dead in a toilet of the Kamakhya Express on 10 July while the body of an elderly woman was found in a toilet of the Avadh Assam Express on 11 July.

On 11 July, a resident of Dibrugarh district, identified as Lalima Devi (48), was found dead in a washroom of Avadh Assam Express, which runs between Assam and Rajasthan.

The second incident bears glaring similarities with the previous incident. According to railway police, the body of the 48-year-old woman was recovered from the toilet of a compartment reserved for differently abled people on the Awadh-Assam Express at Jorhat’s Mariani Junction around 2.15 pm on Wednesday.

Police said the victim, who also hailed from Bihar, had boarded the train from Dibrugarh in upper Assam. The train left Dibrugarh station at 9.36 am and arrived at Mariani Junction around 2.05 pm. “The woman had probably been dead for over an hour before her body was discovered by another passenger,” a railway police officer said.

In this case too, a gamosa was recovered from the toilet.

“The compartment for differently abled passengers is usually empty. We do not suspect rape as of now; this looks like a case of murder,” the officer said. There were no known eyewitnesses to the crime, and Mariani Junction also lacks CCTV cameras.

The woman, who lived in Dibrugarh with her family, was travelling to Bihar.

Simaluguri is located 54 km from Mariani, and falls on the same railway route. The officer pointed at the similarities between the two cases to indicate that the same person may be behind both the killings. “Both the victims were Hindi-speakers, and happened to be strangled in train lavatories. Leaving the gamosas behind must have been the culprit’s way of sending a message, besides inflaming tempers,” he said.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed and Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) R P Meena was asked to look into yesterday’s incident, DGP Kula Saikia said.

“Two people have been murdered and there are similarities in both the cases,” R Chandranathan, special director general of police, Railways, said, adding all efforts are on to nab the killers. “We have deployed 11 quick response teams all across the state to prevent such incidents.”