IAS officer held for ‘rape bid’ on train

An IAS officer has been arrested by the Government Railway Police (GRP) for allegedly molesting and attempting to rape a woman on a moving train near Lucknow on Sunday night. Shashi Bhushan Lal Susheel, a 2001-batch Uttar Pradesh-cadre officer, is currently posted as Special Secretary, Technical Education.

The victim, who works in a multinational company in Delhi, was on her way to Lucknow with her mother on the Lucknow Mail when the alleged incident took place. Susheel boarded the train at Ghaziabad. The victim's mother lodged the complaint after getting down at Lucknow on Monday.

Susheel, who has served as district magistrate of Etah, Bulandshahr and Ghaziabad, was sent in judicial custody for 14 days and has been placed under suspension. DIG (Railways) Hari Ram Sharma said an FIR had been lodged against him charging him with using force to outrage a woman's modesty, and with attempt to rape and criminal intimidation.

SP (Railways) Manoj Kumar said the victim and her mother were travelling in an AC two-tier coach, and Susheel sat opposite them. The victim told her mother that the IAS officer kept staring at her and then deliberately touched her inappropriately. He allegedly again touched her in the morning.

"He seemed drunk. He touched my daughter first in the night when she was sleeping. In the early hours, when the train was near Sandila railway station and I had gone to the washroom, he molested her. When I came back, my daughter complained to me. Then he disappeared. I called up the guards who caught him," said the mother. She claimed that Susheel had done worse than "touch" her daughter and she couldn't talk about it.

According to the victim's mother, as they were getting off at the Charbagh railway station in Lucknow, the man told them he was an IAS officer posted in the city.

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