A 20-year-old dancer from India’s Assam state has been found dead beside a railway track in Andhra Pradesh after disappearing during a train journey home. Before losing contact with her family, the young woman reportedly sent a message expressing fear over the overcrowded carriage and the large number of men around her.
Her body was recovered beside a railway line near a forested area in Malayapuram, in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district. Railway police are investigating the circumstances surrounding her death, including whether she fell from the moving train accidentally or whether a criminal act was involved.
According to a report by NDTV, the woman was a resident of Assam’s Kamrup district and a student at B Borooah College in Guwahati. She had travelled to Visakhapatnam with a dance troupe to take part in a cultural programme.
After the event, she decided to return home alone ahead of her fellow performers. She was due to sit a bank recruitment examination in Guwahati on 10 October and wanted to reach home in time to prepare for it.
During the journey, she remained in contact with family members and friends, sharing updates about her travel. However, the situation became alarming when she described feeling frightened by the conditions inside the train.
Final message raised concerns about her safety
According to her relatives, the young woman sent a message describing the severe overcrowding in the carriage and the number of men surrounding her.
“My surroundings are full of men, and I am very scared,” she reportedly wrote.
The message heightened concerns among her family, particularly when her mobile phone became unreachable after the early hours of 6 October. Attempts to contact her were unsuccessful, prompting her relatives to seek assistance from railway police and the relevant helpline.
Following the complaint, a search was launched to establish her whereabouts. During the search, her bag and personal belongings were reportedly recovered from the train’s S2 coach. The discovery raised further questions about what had happened during her journey and how she had become separated from her possessions.
Her body was subsequently found beside a railway track in the forested area near Malayapuram in Srikakulam district. The recovery brought a tragic end to the search, but the circumstances leading to her death remain unclear.
Police examine possible causes of death
Police have indicated that the woman may have fallen from the moving train. However, investigators have not yet established whether the death resulted from an accidental fall or whether violence or another criminal act was involved.
The post-mortem examination and forensic analysis are expected to provide important evidence about the cause and circumstances of her death. Investigators will need to assess the available evidence before reaching any definitive conclusions.
Police are also examining CCTV footage from Visakhapatnam railway station in an effort to identify an unidentified man who was reportedly seen with the woman before she boarded the train. Establishing his identity and determining the nature of their interaction could help investigators reconstruct the events leading up to her disappearance.
The woman’s final message, the loss of mobile contact, the recovery of her belongings from the S2 coach and the discovery of her body are all significant elements of the investigation. However, the available information does not establish a direct connection between these details or confirm that another person was responsible for her death.
For her family, the unanswered questions surrounding her final hours add to the grief of losing a young woman who had been travelling home with plans to sit an important examination. Investigators are continuing their inquiries, with the post-mortem findings, forensic evidence and CCTV analysis expected to help clarify what happened during the journey.
Until those findings become available, the exact cause of her death and the events preceding it remain undetermined.
