Yet another woman suffered critical injuries after falling off a running train at Bagnan station in Howrah on Saturday afternoon. Locals accused a lady TTE of pushing her, and beat her up and two colleagues.
The station was ransacked and trains were held up for over an hour.
This comes only a day after a ticketless woman was allegedly thrown out of a reserved compartment at Eklakhi station near Malda. A mob ransacked the station and held ticket checking staff hostage for nearly eight hours.
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In Saturday's incident, too, locals jumped the gun and thought that the TTE had shoved 22-year-old Arpita Samanta off the Up Midnapore local. Arpita, a resident of Panskura's Parbaharpota village, is now at SSKM Hospital in Kolkata.
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South Eastern Railway (SER) offi cials said Arpita was travelling without a valid ticket and jumped to dodge a special ticket checking drive. She didn't realize the platform was on the other side and fell on the tracks.
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Arpita was challenged by TTE Mandeep Kaur between Kulgachia and Bagnan stations. When she failed to produce a ticket, an altercation broke out between the two. What happened thereafter is not very clear. Locals claimed Kaur pushed Arpita out of the train around 1.30pm, when it was entering Bagnan station, but the TTE denies this.
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“The TTE said she asked Arpita to pay a fine. When the passenger said she didn't have money , Kaur said she would have to accompany her at Bagnan station. According to Kaur's version, the woman made a dash for the door. She was apparently not sure of the gates and jumped out from the one where there was no platform. She fell on the tracks and hurt her head on the ballast. It seems Kaur tried to grab her when she was jumping and this was misconstrued as a push,“ said Soumitra Majumdar, CPRO and CPTM, SER.
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The Midnapore local left Bagnan on time but over 100 locals gathered thereafter. They caught hold of Kaur, who was standing near Arpita, and assaulted her. A colleague, identified as Hussain, and some GRP personnel came to her rescue but were also attacked. The mob ransacked the GRP camp office and squatted on the tracks, stopping a local and Satya Sai Prasanthi Nilayam-Howrah Express. The mob pelted stones at the express train and broke the windowpanes of an AC compartment. A TTE was dragged off the train and thrashed. This violence continued from 2.20pm to 3.35pm.
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Many of those involved in the vandalism were spurred on by rumours.
“Even I am not sure what happened. I was in a compartment next to the one from which the woman fell. I saw her fall. By the time I got to her, the woman TTE had arrived and was tending to her. Some women from the compartment alleged that the TTE had pushed her out. This led to the trouble,“ said Sk Raja, a passenger.
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“ An inquiry will be conducted and Kaur will be punished if found guilty .
However, we appeal to passengers not to travel without valid tickets. Such things can then be avoided. What happened at the station was a law and order situation that has nothing to do with the railways,“ Majumdar added.
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