A section of Travelling Ticket Examiners resorted to protest on Sunday after one of their colleagues, who allegedly abused a woman software engineer travelling by the Chennai-Kanyakumari Express for failing to provide identity proof for ‘tatkal ticket’ was taken for enquiry by the Government Railway Police (GRP) at Tiruchi on Saturday night.
The incident occurred in the Chennai — Kanyakumari Express in which the 22-year-old woman, employed in a software firm in Chennai, was travelling to Tiruchi.
As a sequel to the incident, a group of TTEs assigned duty on the Madurai-Chennai Vaigai Express on Sunday morning abstained from work. The sources said the train left Madurai without the TTEs. Three TTEs were arranged to be deployed in the train in Tiruchi. However, they too did not go in the train citing different reasons and the train left Tiruchi without them.
The woman who had a ‘tatkal ticket’ reportedly failed to produce an identity proof to the coach TTE, railway sources said. The TTE, the woman alleged, had used harsh words. Upon arrival at Tiruchi Junction on Saturday, the issue was brought to the notice of the Railway Protection Force and the GRP. The coach TTE was detained and the GRP personnel conducted enquiries with him and the woman.
Even as the enquiry was on, a group of TTEs in Tiruchi came to the railway police station and demanded that the TTE be let off.