No headway in American woman attack case; 15 persons grilled

Railway police today grilled 15 more persons with criminal antecedents in connection with the robbery and attack on an American woman in a running suburban train here even as its teams fanned out across the city.
Yesterday, the investigators had rounded up 28 suspects for questioning but later let them off. The police failed to make any breakthrough so far, though it had released the suspect's sketch.
"We have picked up 15 more persons for questioning today. They are either drug addicts or have criminal antecedents," said an official with Government Railway Police (GRP), probing the case.
The accused, suspected to be a drug addict, had slashed the victim, identified as Michelle Mark, on her neck and cheek when she refused to part with her iPhone in a first-class women's compartment of a Borivli-bound local train on Sunday evening.

The accused jumped out of the train as it slowed down at the Charni Road railway station.
24-year-old Mark was alone in the compartment. As it was Sunday, the bogie was empty. The victim spotted the accused inside the train at Marine Lines station, police said.

The woman, who resides at Goregaon along with her brother and two others and works with an NGO, had been in Mumbai since a year.
On Sunday, she had gone to Colaba for a prayer meet.
The victim, who is yet to come out of the trauma, was shown photographs of pick-pocketers and chain snatchers in police records but there were no positive results, the official said.

"Our teams have spread all over. Now we are also obtaining photographs of the criminals from Mumbai police department. We will show them to her," he said.
Four special teams of Railway Crime Branch were formed under the supervision of GRP Commissioner Prabhat Kumar and two teams have been formed by the Churchgate police station, where an FIR was registered.