The incident occurred on 31 July, onboard the Coimbatore-Mangalapuram inter-city express as it was passing through Kannur district.
Screengrab from the video.
The Kasaragod Railway Police on Wednesday, 2 August, arrested a 51-year-old man for allegedly flashing at a female college student on board a moving train.
George Joseph of Cooveri in Kannur was arrested based on the student’s complaint. The alleged incident occurred aboard the Coimbatore-Mangaluru Intercity Express while the train was passing through the Kannur district on 31 July.
After registering the case, it was transferred to the Kannur Railway Police since the incident occurred in their jurisdictional area. Joseph, too, was handed over to the Railway Police in Kannur.
The police said the student boarded the train at Shoranur in the Palakkad district. The man, seated opposite to her, inappropriately touched his private parts. She recorded a video of the act before confronting him, and he left the seat.
The incident came to light after television channels aired the visuals. Joseph has been booked under sections 119(a) (performing sexual gestures or acts in public places degrading the dignity of women) of the Kerala Police Act and section 509 (insult to modesty of a woman) of the IPC .
Incidentally, Joseph was the fourth man to be arrested for exhibitionism on public transport since May.
The police had arrested a man, Raju, in Thiruvananthapuram on 5 June for allegedly flashing at a woman passenger on a KSRTC bus. The incident occurred while the bus was heading to Thiruvananthapuram from Ernakulam.
Other passengers detained the man and handed him over to the police. The woman, a government employee, complained that Raju repeatedly flashed at her. The man had boarded the bus from Kottayam.
On 29 May, a video of a man allegedly exposing his genitals and appearing to be masturbating in front of a woman went viral on social media.
The video was recorded by the woman who boarded a KSRTC bus at Cherupuzha near Payyanur on 28 May.
The video showed the man in a blue shirt, white mundu, and a black mask, appearing to be reading a newspaper. After arresting him on 1 June, the police identified him as Binu NK, a resident of Nallompuzha in Kasaragod.
A group that calls itself the All Kerala Men’s Association (AKMA) welcomed Savad Shah, arrested for flashing at a model on board a KSRTC bus, when he was released from the Aluva sub-jail after the completion of his remand period, on 3 June.
Shah allegedly flashed and masturbated while sitting next to the woman on a bus to Ernakulam on 18 May. When she raised an alarm, he tried to flee but was caught by the bus crew.
The model said he initially touched her inappropriately. “The next moment, he started masturbating beside me. I could not tolerate it anymore and I reacted,” she said in a video posted on social media.
However, a section of people claimed that the woman’s complaint was a publicity stunt and that Shah, a resident of Kozhikode, was innocent.
Calling it a case of honey trap, Vattiyoorkavu Ajith Kumar, the president of AKMA, said, “We first extended support to the woman. But later, a YouTuber informed us that the allegation was false. Even in the video, you can see it’s smartly shot. She is alleging that he was flashing his private parts. You can’t see that anywhere in the video.”
(With PTI inputs)
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