Off-duty ticket checker urinates on woman railway passenger, sacked

An off-duty railway ticket checker allegedly urinated on a passenger on Kolkata-Amritsar Akal Takht Express, prompting the Indian Railways to sack him and declaring it has ”zero tolerance” for such behaviour.

Munna Kumar, said to be under the influence of alcohol, was arrested after the incident past midnight on March 13 following a complaint by the passenger's husband at Charbagh station, a GRP official said.

"Zero tolerance. Removal from service with immediate effect," Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted.

The incident has come close on the heels of similar incidents reported on board airlines in recent months.

A resident of Begusarai in Bihar, Kumar was posted as a travel ticket examiner (TTE) in Saharanpur. The woman and her husband were travelling from Kiul in Bihar to Amritsar in Punjab, GRP inspector Navratna Gautam told PTI in Lucknow.

Gautam said a probe will be conducted to ascertain if Kumar was drunk at the time of the incident.

In a notice to Kumar, the Northern Railway said, "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 organisation. It is also seen that you are in judicial custody.

"Taking cognisance of this grave matter, I consider it to be a fit case to adopt the provision of Rule 14(ii). Thus, I hereby deem it fit to impose the punishment of 'removal from service with immediate effect' for behaviour unbecoming of a railway servant," the notice signed by the divisional commercial manager said.

Kumar allegedly urinated on the woman's head.

Last week, an inebriated student allegedly urinated while asleep in his seat on an American Airlines flight. It somehow leaked and fell on a fellow passenger, who complained to the flight crew.

On November 26, a man identified as Shankar Mishra allegedly urinated in a drunken state on an elderly woman on a New York-Delhi Air India flight. In another case, a man allegedly urinated on the blanket of a female co-passenger on a Paris-Delhi flight on December 6.