Two senior citizens, including a heart patient on the way to a hospital, on Wednesday alleged misbehavior by contractual parking workers in Noida after they "illegally" towed away the septuagenarians' car while the elderly were sitting inside.
An FIR has been lodged in the case and the private agency handling the parking work in Sector 50, where the incident took place, has been slapped with a penalty of Rs 50,000 and issued a show cause notice as to why it should not be blacklisted, according to officials.
A purported video of the incident surfaced on social media, showing a crane towing the red-colour hatchback even as the senior citizens were sitting inside it.
While speaking to a TV news channel, car owner Vishwajit Mazumder said he had gone to a hospital in Noida Sector 50 with his sister-in-law and they were asked for some payment in cash along with photocopies of some documents.
"In a little hurry, we parked the car in a no-parking zone in Sector 50 and could not see the no-parking signage as it was covered by some tree leaves. We were back in five minutes after work but by that time, the car's front portion was lifted up for towing," Mazumder told NDTV.
"We begged the parking workers that we have a patient who needs to go to the hospital. She has a heart ailment. We are senior citizens, 70 years old. The parking workers did not listen to us. A crowd gathered there and even they appealed for us, but to no avail. The parking workers insisted that the car can be taken from the police station now," he claimed.
The elderly man said he even offered some money to the parking workers to release the car, citing shortage of time on their end.
"The boys (parking workers) were very indecent. This is usual with contract workers now. They are not educated and have no process of working. We were sitting inside the car and they towed us to the police station," Mazumder said.
Later in the day, the Noida Authority said it is operating surface parking in various sectors through private agencies for smooth traffic in the city.
It noted that MG Infra Solution has been allotted work in Sector 50 and on Wednesday its crane operator and his assistant "illegally" towed away the car from there to the parking of Logix Mall in Sector 32, and "tarnished" the image of the authority with this act.
"This company has been warned in the past also about violating the conditions of the contract by misbehaving with citizens and extorting money from them.
For the incident on March 20, an FIR has been lodged at Sector 49 police station against the crane operator and his assistant while a penalty of Rs 50,000 slapped on MG Infra Solution," the authority said in a statement.
A show cause notice has also been issued to the company to explain why it should not be blacklisted for works of the authority, it added.
