Chennai: Southern Railway Mazdoor Union (SRMU), in its last ditch effort to prevent administrative reforms, directed a volley of abuses by a disgruntled all-women squad of travel ticket examiners (TTE), on a senior railway official.
Nine staff who had mobbed and verbally abused Chief Commercial Manager (CCM) Ajeet Saxena were issued suspension orders on Wednesday and a case was registered against them by the Government Railway Police.
The attempt of Sucheta Pani, who led the verbal assault, to provoke Saxena, fell flat since he did not take it lying down. Sensing the scheme, Saxena called a woman official into his cabin, and instructed her to identify the unruly gang members, which prompted the mob take to their heels.
A few unassuming SRMU members were among those who made it to the suspension list. All those who came to meet the CCM had availed casual leave en-masse.
The imbroglio began with the reforms initiated by senior divisional commercial manager Ravichandran and the CCM, who recently took over the reins, took it forward besides supporting the former. “TTE squad was subjected to internal audit, and the squad members were transferred. This was met with stiff opposition since they would not get the monetary benefits, which they used to draw when they were part of the squad. Starting from there many reforms were mooted,” said an SRMU source.
“This is the week the orders of the senior DCM are due to be implemented, and the ‘affected’ lot chose to malign the integrity of the senior official by mobbing him besides levelling charges of women harassment. This way the official enforcing it would be busy defending the allegation against him than weeding out corruption,” a senior railway official told DC.
“A concocted sexual harassment plaint against Saxena was preferred with the railway top brass and the city police here. Meanwhile on Wednesday, SRMU also staged a demonstration in the city impressing the general manager to take action against the CCM.
