BENGALURU: A Travelling Ticketing Examiner attached to the Bangalore Railway Division has been placed under suspension for allegedly ill-treating and being abusive towards students from Sikkim, including two ladies.
The incident took place on May 19 on a Shramik Special train bound to New Jaipaiguri in West Bengal, which had a good number of students from the North East. It happened late at night before the train left from Platform One of the Cantonment Railway station after much delay.
It came to light because one of the students on the train secretly recorded the behaviour of the railway staffer. It was posted on Facebook by one of the students and a link to it was tweeted by an individual Mitralal Dhugel tagging Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and the official handle of the Railway Ministry yesterday (Wednesday). The tweet from the handle @DhungelMitrelal said, "How this TTE of Railway misbehaving with Sikkim people. Please look into the matter Sir."
In the three-minute video posted by him, the TTE is seen entering a compartment with students and ordering the women students to sit in specific places and remove the luggage that they had placed in front of the seats. He is seen addressing them in the singular and being very arrogant in his behaviour.
When one of the male students attempted to keep a luggage on the top berth, the TTE orders him to sit down. To a comment by a student that they were sitting apart in order to maintain social distancing the official is seen remarking, "If you want to observe social distancing, then travel by a flight."
Divisional Railway Manager, A K Verma profusely apologised on Twitter to the students for the behaviour of the TTE. He summoned the TTE was the following morning to his chamber and played the video to him. Asked about the incident, Verma said, "We have immediately placed him on suspension. Stringent action will be taken against him. 99% of the railway staff are well behaved. Whenever we come across any such misbehaviour, we take instant action."
Another railway official added that such behaviour is highly condemnable. "Behaving so rudely to any passenger is not acceptable. There needs to be extra care shown when they are students and are women. Even we are very put off by his behaviour," the officer said.