A youngster’s attempt on social media to portray himself as the saviour of a girl in distress had an anticlimactic end with him getting arrested after the police punched holes in what they claimed to be a fabricated story.
A video posted by Alan Thomas, 20, of Chalakudy, on social media on January 31 had gone viral. In the video, he narrates the story of how he came to the rescue of a young woman who was travelling along with him in a train from Thrissur to Ernakulam.
According to the narrative of Thomas, an aviation student, the railway coach turned deserted, except for the two of them, when the train reached Ernakulam Town station, from where a man entered and sat right next to the girl despite there being a lot of other vacant seats. Later, when the train halted at a point between the Town and Junction stations, the man began groping the girl, at which point Thomas intervened and broke his nose. He said the petrified girl then fled the scene.
He went on to claim that he handed over the man to the RPF when the train reached Ernakulam Junction, but ended up being the victim charged with attempt to murder. The video ended with a plea to be shared as much as possible till the girl was alerted so that she could corroborate his account.
“We summoned the youngster as soon as the video came to our notice. But neither could he answer our questions satisfactorily nor could he present evidence to back his claims. He could not even identify the RPF cop who he claimed to have handed over the man to,” said an RPF official.
District Police Chief (Kochi City) Vijay Sakhare intervened in the issue, following which the Central police collected his statement and later arrested him. “It was a story he cooked up for instant fame. He also had run into problems with his affair and was perhaps trying to gain sympathy,” said police sources. Thomas was charged with Section 118(b) (knowingly spreads rumours or gives false alarm to mislead police, fire brigade or any other essential service) of the Kerala Police Act.