Thousand criminals can be left free, but not a single innocent should be punished is the fundamental principle of our judiciary system. But railways was a last bench student when this was being explained, they just listened to the first part.
2 days before this happened, I blogged on the hope I have on the future of India. I was confident that things could change, but this turned me skeptical. Last Sunday, we took our parents to secunderabad station at around 12:35 pm to board a train supposed to start at 1:05 pm. Station as it's always was packed with people. There were people hanging out from each compartment of Golconda express. It took time for me to realize that they were reserved compartments. I was utter stuck at the situation out there, me and my brother have tried all means ( requesting / shouting) to let our parents in. My 58 year old father could not even move a single step in that senseless crowd. We gave up our challenge, standing helpless in front of parents being unable to get what we rightly deserved.
My race towards justice started here when I ran to the tte explaining the situation. He said that he was helpless as he has already informed railway police that the crowd is unmanageable, but there was no action taken. When I was finding way to reach RPF , saw 3 police men relaxed and " watching " everything that happened. When I went to one of them and asked to help, he said it was not his job. When I asked him to explain his roles I got an interesting answer " we are meant to take action when something wrong happens ". I said " your primary job is to stop from something bad happening and not act after it happens" . I asked him to say this before camera , he denied and started to walk with me. On the way to our compartment, I have shown him another old couple struggling to get into train. It took 5 minutes for them to get nearly 25 of the unreserved passengers. Meantime, train started and everyone jumped back to train pushing down the police.
Being a failed son, I asked my brother to take my parents home. Trying to find a solution for this I walked to the station master's office. When I explained this they simply said that it's quite normal. They adviced me to cancel the ticket and get 50% of my money back. When I denied this and asked them to tell whose failure was this, they said I might have been late to train. I took out my platform ticket , showed time and everyone was silent.
A Senior official came up and explained the work flow there and guided me to a person at sanchalan bhavan who could help me. In the time spent there I got company of a person who was into senior management of a renowned Indian company. He was there to complain against a tte who denied confirmation of his RAC1 ticket , but confirmed a WL ticket. He was abused when he questioned this.
We both reached sanchalan bhavan, the officer was out of office and we discussed our issues with the person available and they said they would take action. I have repeatedly explained them that my problem was not to get refund , but to stop this from happening to the people waiting for next train. No one had an answer for this. I came back to station and was waiting to write a written complaint against this. Another case was under discussion there. A boy and girl have entered station finding out where to get tickets. They came to know that they were provided outside the station and were caught by ticket checking staff while walking out. Tte has demanded fine and has checked their personals to know if they were hiding any money. He has taken the phone with them and asked to pay money to get it back. The amount he demanded was also more than the supposed amount. A lady( who said is the guardian of them) was trying to know the name of the person to complain. But all the staff there tried to hide his identity. When she was losing her patience , a person asked them to come inside a room and discuss. As they went in, I was trying for my turn to write complaint. A person ( DCM) has entered the room where that lady was taken, he came out abusing who made her enter the chamber. Lady and her kids followed out and she exclaimed at the situation where not even a single person there is brave enough to accept that they only guided her in. She started writing her compliant and meanwhile I came to know that she was a German delegate to India (Indian origin ) . she felt humiliated with the way she has been treated and abused. Though we shared our concern and extended our help, she was determined to go forward legally. While leaving she again knocked the door to know the name of DCM , she came out more humiliated. She left from there and people from sathavahana express joined who couldn't get into train because of unreserved passengers. This made me impatient as I was waiting only to make them take action to stop this happening to next train. As they failed , I started collecting people to write complaints on each of their name. meantime, cops arrived late as usual saying that they got information from state level officials that there is some conflict there. Seeing the influence of that lady many there were silent. I explained them the gist and shared my phone number agreeing for being evidence.
Once police left , they realized that situation was turning poise. A person from them approached me and took me aside. He offered me to refund 100 % of my money, I denied as it looked like he was bribing me. He said that its legal and would take a written statement agreeing this. Even then, as I denied to take back complaint and leaving there, he showed me that additional police has been deployed and situation is taken care.
Fighting almost for 4 :30 hours to get justice, I realised where our system fails. The image we carry to other countries was so heart breaking. I still hope that necessary actions would be taken to prevent such cases where the rightful owners are denied their rights.
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