A deputy chief ticket inspector of the Indian Railways has been suspended after a video was shared on social media showing him assaulting a man on the Barauni-Lucknow Express. The incident took place on Thursday between Gonda and Barabanki stations in Uttar Pradesh.
Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw confirmed that the ticket examiner had been suspended. There will be “zero tolerance for such misconduct,” Vaishnaw added in a social media post.
The suspended ticket examiner, who was posted at the Lucknow Junction railway station, has been identified only by his first name, Prakash. An investigation has been ordered into the matter.
“We came to know that a deputy chief ticket inspector named Prakash assaulted a passenger, possibly because he was having an irregular ticket,” the Lucknow Railways Division public relations officer told PTI. “He was not authorised to travel in that particular class with the ticket that he had purchased.”
In the 30-second video, people can be heard objecting to the ticket examiner’s actions as he repeatedly slaps and jostles the passenger, who maintains that he has a valid ticket. The ticket examiner then drags the passenger by his scarf while trying to stop other travellers from filming the incident.
While the passenger did not make a formal complaint about the incident, senior officers took cognisance of the matter and launched the probe after seeing the video on social media, The Indian Express reported an unidentified railway official as saying.
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