Moga molestation case: Witnesses fear wrath of Badals, dare not to testify for teenage victim

A month after a 13-year-old girl died after being molested and pushed off a running bus in Punjab’s Moga district, the police have managed to track down five more passengers by tracing their cell-phones. However, all of them have refused to be a part of the probe, reports The Indian Express .

The girl and her mother were pushed off from a bus  belonging to Orbit Aviation which is owned by relatives of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on 29 April.

The fact that despite the horrific incident gaining headlines, no co-passenger is willing to come ahead and reveal what exactly happened could be attributed to the involvement of the mighty Badal clan.

At a time when the chief minister and the deputy chief minister have faced quite a lot of backlash for the incident, they should be the one stepping up and encouraging witnesses to come ahead and shed light on the incident, rather than thinking that ordering all Orbit buses off the road, would be enough.

The five co-passengers – Gagandeep Singh, Paramjeet Singh, Vijay Kumar, Jagtar Singh and Amarjeet Kaur – have asked the police to not involve them in the ‘high profile case’.

Hindustan Times had earlier reported an account of another co-passenger some days after the incident where he had said that the bus was almost full when the incident happened.

An inspector with the horticulture department, Tarsem Singh added that he realised what had happened only after he heard screams that a girl had fallen off.

However, he denied witnessing the incident or having heard or seen anything, while talking to Indian Express .

Some passengers who have been traced have also claimed that they were either not aware of the incident or that they were sleeping when the incident took place.