New Delhi: A travelling ticket examiner (TTE) was Tuesday sacked from his position with immediate effect for allegedly urinating on a woman passenger in an inebriated state on board a Amritsar-Kolkata train.
The incident comes close on the heels of a string of similar occurrences on board airplanes recently, where travellers have peed on fellow passengers while in a drunken state.
The order to sack Munna Kumar “for behaviour unbecoming of a railway servant” was put up on Twitter by Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishaw Tuesday.
“Zero tolerance. Removal from service with immediate effect,” the minister said in his tweet.
Kumar was travelling off-duty in train no. 12317 on the intervening night of 12-13 March when the incident took place, said the railways’ order. It noted that Kumar urinated “on the head of a lady passenger” (not identified) near Akbarpur.
An FIR was subsequently lodged by the victim’s husband, following which Kumar was arrested and sent to judicial custody. He has been charged under sections 352, 354A and 509 of the IPC.
“Your above 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 organization. It is also seen that you are in judicial custody. Taking the cognizance of this grave matter, I consider it to be a fit case to adopt the provision of Rule 14(ii). Thus, I Thereby deem it fit to impose the punishment of “REMOVAL FROM SERVICE WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT for behaviour unbecoming of a railway servant,” the order read.
According to rules, Kumar has the right to appeal against the order within 45 days.
Similar incidents
Similar incidents have taken place on board Air India planes recently. In one Air India flight from New York to Delhi on 26 November, a man urinated on an elderly passenger in his drunken state.
The airline came under heavy critisism for failing to handle the incident and also for not reporting it on time.
The second incident took place on 6 December on Air India flight 142 on the Paris-Delhi sector.
In another such incident that took place earlier this month, a drunk Indian student allegedly urinated on his co-passenger mid-air on a New York-New Delhi American Airlines flight.
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