NEW DELHI, Mar 14: Months after a couple of mid-air peegate scandals that rocked the air services in the country, a similar incident was reported in the Indian Railways as well.
A drunk person employed as a ticket collector in the Railways allegedly peed on a woman passenger of the top A1 coach while travelling from Amritsar to Kolkata in Akal Takht Express.
The person Munna Kumar was sacked by the Railways on Tuesday on instructions from the Railway minister Ashwani Vaishnaw. Reports said Munna Kumar, a Bihar resident, was arrested in Lucknow on Monday, a day after he urinated on the passenger’s head.
The woman was travelling with her husband Rajesh Kumar, Government Railway Police officials said. Munna Kumar was on leave on the day of the incident, they said.
“The conduct showing disrespect to women construes a serious misconduct, in the process bringing disrepute not only to your own self but entire railways as an organisation,” the northern railway said in a letter to the man. I hereby deem it fit to impose the punishment of “REMOVAL FROM SERVICE WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT” for behaviour unbecoming of a railway servant,” read the statement.
“Zero tolerance. Removal from service with immediate effect,” tweeted the Railways Minister while sharing the letter. It was not clear what was the provocation for his such uncalled for action and what was he doing in the coach on the day he was on leave.
The incident comes months after two similar cases were reported on two Air India flights – New York to Delhi and Paris to Delhi. On November 26, a “drunk” male passenger urinated on a female co-passenger on-board a New York-Delhi Air India flight. Just ten days after the shocking incident another such incident took place on the Paris-Delhi sector when a man peed on a blanket of a female passenger.
Shankar Mishra, the accused in the first case, was arrested in January and banned by the airline for four months. No penal action was pressed in the second incident after the passenger gave a written apology.
(Manas Dasgupta)