A 15-year-old schoolgirl was killed on a moving bus in East Burdwan’s Ketugram, allegedly by a youth of the same village, on Tuesday afternoon.

The heinous crime, which occurred inside a moving public bus, has raised serious concerns about the women’s safety in Bengal, especially as it comes in the wake of the August 9 rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

Shortly after the murder, a large police team immediately swung into action. They finally found accused Hajibul Sheikh aka Babu, from a paddy field near the crime spot, after a four-hour manhunt on Tuesday evening.

“The girl’s throat was slit inside the moving bus. Police have seized the bus and arrested the accused person within hours of the crime. We are questioning the accused to know the motive,” said Amandeep, the East Burdwan police superintendent.

The Ketugram police station, under which the murder- was committed.

The accused is a resident of the same village from where the girl belongs, used to disturb her ever since the former returned from Kerala, where he used to be a migrant worker, six months ago.

Currently, the 23-year-old youth used to run a vegetable shop in Katwa.

The victim, a resident of a village in Katwa and a Class XI student of a local girls’ high school, had gone to her maternal uncle’s home to a village in Ketugram police station area, 18km away from her house, for a brief visit last Thursday.

On Tuesday morning, her aunt took the girl to the local block development office for some administrative work.

The duo took a Katwa-Ketugram-bound private bus from Komorpur bus stand around 12.15pm on Tuesday to return to the village.

“She was sitting beside me on the bus. As the bus crossed a local level crossing, the assailant covered her mouth and began slitting her throat. I screamed and caught him by his shirt immediately. But he pushed me and managed to flee as I fell on the floor of the vehicle,” said the aunt.

A police officer said the conductor of the bus told them that the assailant jumped from the moving bus and disappeared into a paddy field.

According to the victim’s aunt, there were only 10-15 passengers seated on the bus but in a scattered way.

“The knife attack on my niece happened so quickly that no one could even understand that a girl had been murdered inside the moving bus,” she added.

Police were informed and a team from Ketugram police station rushed to the spot.

Residents crowd around Ketugram police station after the schoolgirl's murder.

“However, the girl had died on the spot. We recovered the body and took the bus in which the crime took place at Ketugram police station,” said a police officer.

The victim’s family members questioned the security of girls and women in rural areas.

They asked how an armed assailant could board a bus and attack a girl in the presence of so many passengers in a moving bus.

“There is no security for women here as a minor girl was not only killed in front of the other passengers, but managed to flee from the spot. It exposes the safety of our women even on the streets,” said the uncle of the victim.

Amandeep, asked about questions of security raised by the shocked kin after the gruesome murder, said the police would increase surveillance at the bus stops.

“We think that the accused was following the girl’s movements to kill her. However, we will increase our surveillance at different bus stops,” he added.

A police officer said they were interrogating the arrested person about the motive behind the murder. However, they primarily suspect he had been trying to persuade her to agree to an affair.

“However, we have questions on why he chose a moving bus to kill the girl when they both hail from the same village,” said a police officer.