The Nungambakkam railway station in Chennai is fairly less crowded in the early mornings, but not completely deserted.
On Friday morning too, when a 24-year-old female Infosys employee was hacked to death on the platform, there were people around her, waiting to board the next train.
Her screams for help however fell on deaf ears as the people who witnessed the horrific incident chose to look away, claims a shopkeeper who runs a stall at the station.
The man, on conditions of anonymity, told The News Minute that he heard the girl's screams in the morning but by the time he and others around him ran to the spot, she had been brutally injured.
The shopkeeper, who opens his shop at 6 am, said that it was around 6:30 am that he heard the shrieking.
"We ran to the spot and saw that the girl had been injured on the throat or neck. She was lying in a pool of blood. We did not see the attacker. He may have had run away from the other side," he said.
"But there were people present at the spot who witnessed the entire incident and they quietly left in the next train," he added.
Though the gruesome incident took place early in the morning, the 24-year-old victims’ body was only removed from the spot after 8.30 am.
"Normally, there's no police at the station before 8 am," the shopkeeper said.
An officer with the railway police confirmed that no police personnel are assigned at the Nungambakkam railway station from night to morning 7 am. The reason for this, he stated, was a shortage of staff in the force.
The shocking incident took place on Friday morning when the victim was waiting to board the suburban train for work in Mahindra Tech City.
The victim was identified by police sources as 24-year-old Swathi, a resident of South Gangai Street, Choolaimedu.
Just minutes before the murder, she was dropped at the station by her father Sreenivasan, a retired central government employee. According to local sources, Swathi was waiting at the platform when a young man, wearing black pants, approached her and began hacking her with a knife.