BHUBANESWAR: Felicitated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for rescuing an INA soldier Laxmi Indira Panda’s daughter-in-law last month, a research scholar from Balasore district was allegedly harassed by TTE and RPF personnel while he was travelling in Bhubaneswar-Howrah Jan Shatabdi Express on Wednesday.
Debapriya Samal of Chakabrahma village alleged that he could not attend his internal assessment examination and meet university panel for selection of his MPhil research topic as he was detained at Kharagpur railway station for more than three hours.
Harassed, he appealed to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday to take action against the erring TTEs and RPF personnel, who abused him with obscene language and threatened him with dire consequences when he refused to pay them money.
Like every day, Debapriya, who had topped the MPhil entrance exam and studies in Vidyasagar University at Medinipur, had boarded the train at Balasore and was to get down at Kharagpur. He said a TTE asked him for ticket during his journey and when he produced his Monthly Season Ticket (MST), he was allowed to travel.
As the train crossed Belda, a group of five TTEs came along with three RPF personnel and asked him to show ticket again. They did not accept his MST and started harassing him. Stating that the pass was for Express trains, they asked him to pay the fine.
“When I expressed my inability to pay money as I was having only `90, they took me to the TTE rest room at Kharagpur station and detained me there. They went on abusing me when I requested them to allow me to attend the exam, which was at 12 noon,” he said. The research scholar was, however, allowed to go at around 2 pm after an RPF officer from Balasore rang up his counterpart in Kharagpur.