Duronto-Press News.

Mamata special’s track record under fire again

Published: Saturday, Nov 20, 2010, 2:33 IST

The non-stop Duronto Express, started by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, is giving non-stop trouble to commuters on Central Railway.

In another case of negligence on part of the railway administration, AC coach attendants supplied dirty and unwashed bed sheets, blankets and pillow covers to deputy commissioner of railway police Ashok Deshbhratar and Sunil Mankikar, chairman of the Indo-Israel Krishi Samitee, and 46 other passengers travelling in the 2nd AC coach of the Nagpur-Mumbai Duronto Express on Wednesday night.

Narrating the experience, Nagpur resident Mankikar said, “I boarded the second AC coach A1 at Nagpur at around 8.15pm on Wednesday.

DCP Ashok Deshbhratar was also travelling in the same coach. Soon after the train started, two coach attendants had started supplying bed sheets, blankets, pillows and pillow covers to the 48 passengers in the coach.”

“I noticed that the bed sheets and pillow covers supplied by them were foul-smelling, dirty and unwashed, and had probably been used by passengers earlier,” Mankikar said and added that he brought it to the notice of the coach attendants and other passengers.

Attendants in turn politely told the passengers that they had on several occasions informed their superiors about such complaints.

But the enraged passengers abused and thrashed the attendants, said Mankikar, and added that he lodged a complaint at the CST railway police station when the train pulled into the station at 9.45am on Thursday morning.

DCP Deshbhratar, however, was not available for comment. Confirming the incident, senior police inspector Dilip Mane of CST railway police station said, “We have registered a case under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the Kolkata-based Band Box company, which was awarded the contract of supplying bed sheets, blankets, pillows and pillow covers to passengers travelling in the AC coaches of the train and seized five dirty and unwashed bed sheets and a pillow cover,” said Mane.