Hyderabad,May 3:A vending contractor has been charged with a fine of Rs 1 lakh by the Indian Railways after a video suggesting that water from a train toilet was being used to prepare tea and coffee surfaced, the South Central Railway (SCR) said on Wednesday.

In the video that has been in circulation on social media the past few days, a vendor is seen coming out of a train toilet with tea and coffee cans, indicating that the water was ‘mixed’ in the cans inside the toilet.

The video was recorded last December onboard the Chennai Central-Hyderabad Charminar Express at Secunderabad railway station in Hyderabad, a release said days after the video gained traction on social media.

“An inquiry was conducted, and on the basis of it stringent action has been taken up against the Train Side Vending contractor for the section between Secunderabad and Kazipet, P Sivaprasad, with whom the identified vendor in the video was employed... A penalty of Rs 1 lakh has been levied on the licensee, through the IRCTC, the contracting agency,” SCR chief public relations officer M Umashankar Kumar said in the release.

Two other people, who are unauthorised hawkers, are also seen in the video, he said.

The Commercial Department of the SCR has been carrying out extensive drives against unauthorised hawking at Secunderabad railway station in the last few months, during which all hawkers, including the two involved in the incident, were removed, Kumar added.

A strict vigil was continuously being kept at various levels to ensure that no such incidents recur in the SCR Zone, the official said.

 

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Bareilly (UP), Nov 24: Three people died when their car fell into the Ramganga river from a partially constructed bridge here on Sunday, police said, adding that they suspect the driver was misled by its navigation system into taking the unsafe route.

The accident occurred around 10 am on the Khalpur-Dataganj road when the victims were travelling from Bareilly to Dataganj in the Badaun district, they said.

"Earlier this year, floods had caused the front portion of the bridge to collapse into the river, but this change had not been updated in the system," Circle Officer Ashutosh Shivam said.

The driver was using a navigation system and did not realise that the bridge was unsafe, driving the car off the damaged section, the police said.

There were no safety barriers or warning signs on the approach to the damaged bridge, leading to the fatal accident, Shivam said.

Upon receiving information, police teams from Faridpur, Bareilly and Dataganj police station rushed to the spot. They recovered the vehicle and the bodies from the river, Shivam added.

The circle officer said that bodies had been sent for post-mortem. Further investigation into the matter is underway.