By IANS,
Lucknow : While injured athlete Arunima Sinha is receiving treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, railway police in Uttar Pradesh said Tuesday they were looking into what they claim to be loopholes in her story.
Arunima Sinha was shifted to the AIIMS from Bareilly last week following amputation of her crushed left leg after she was pushed out of a running train in the early hours of April 12.
“Our investigations have revealed that Arunima’s story has many holes,” Additional Director General of Railways Police A.K. Jain told reporters here Tuesday.
“We have reason to suspect that she suffered the injuries either in an attempt to commit suicide or she met with an accident, but chose to blame it on crime in the railways,” the official said.
A resident of Ambedkar Nagar, Arunima said she was pushed out of the general compartment of Padmawati Express while resisting a chain-snatching attempt by some hoodlums. She was travelling from Lucknow to Delhi for a CISF employment test.
Her left leg came under the wheels of another train passing on the parallel rail track.
Railway police took her to a local district hospital where she lay injured, traumatised for two days before she could narrate the whole incident to the police.
Jain said: “Arunima’s version does not match with the railway police investigations came up with. It appears that she has been giving wrong facts right from the beginning.”
“Contrary to her claim, Arunima never had any test scheduled for the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on April 12. She had left her home in a huff after being rebuked by her estranged husband in Lucknow,” the official said.
Jain also said the 23-year-old sportswoman did not lose her left leg as a result of the fall from train.
“Her version that her left leg was overrun by a train on the parallel track after she was flung out of the general compartment of the train could not be taken on face value as the distance at which she was found lying in an unconscious state was far more than where she could have fallen in the event of being pushed out,” he pointed out.
Jain also said he was confident that Arunima’s statement about the train running at a high speed was false.
“The fact that the train halted at Chanaiti railway station, barely 250 metres ahead of the spot where Arunima was found by the police, further goes to disprove her statement that the train was running at a high speed, because any fast moving train necessarily slows down well before a stoppage,” he said.
Following wide publicity Arunima Sinha received after the incident, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee offered her a job, while the union government also made arrangements for her special treatment at the AIIMS.
Financial assistance also followed as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati announced Rs.1 lakh aid. Other voluntary organisations and individuals also came up with aid offers.