The order to suspend a travel ticket examiner (TTE) for fining three ticketless travellers on the Dhaka-bound Sundarban Express will be withdrawn, Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan said on Sunday amid calls for his resignation for the unfair action against the TTE.
He also said he felt embarrassed by the phone call his newly married wife made to a railway official and got involved in the incident.
“A probe has already been ordered into the matter of how the ticketless travellers lodged a written complaint so quickly,” he told reporters at Rail Bhaban.
“Action against those responsible will be taken after the investigation,” he said, adding a show-cause notice has been issued against Nasir Uddin, Pakshi divisional railway commercial officer (DCO), to explain why he suspended the TTE Shafiqul Islam.
Shafiqul, who works at Bangladesh Railway’s Pakshi Division, was suspended on Friday, a day after he fined three individuals for travelling in an air-conditioned coach without tickets claiming that they were relatives of the railways minister.
Angered by the fine, the three lodged a complaint to the railway authorities accusing the TTE of “misbehaving” with them.
The suspension of the TTE, in which the railway minister’s wife reportedly had a role, touched off widespread criticism on social media, with Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) calling on the minister to leave office allowing a fair investigation into the incident.
Talking to reporters on Saturday, the minister denied that the ticketless travellers were his relatives. However, a day later on Sunday, he changed his statement.
Replying to a question about denying the passengers as his relatives, the minister said: “Now I have come to know that those who were travelling by the train are relatives of my wife.”
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“Since I got married for the second time only nine months ago, I had to talk to my wife about their identity. Until Saturday I was totally unaware of it,” he added.
“My wife complained about the ‘misbehaviour’ of the TTE but did not talk about the suspension. Whatever she did without informing me was not right and it embarrassed me,” he said.
Responding to another question about whether Bangladesh Railway should award the TTE, the minister said maybe he would be awarded or promoted.
Earlier on Saturday, the minister claimed to have no involvement in the suspension of TTE Shafiqul Islam, over his “misbehaviour with passengers”.
On Friday, news broke of a TTE on a train being suspended for fining three people claiming to be railway minister’s relatives who were travelling without tickets. The TTE was said to have been suspended over a phone call without being given a chance to even defend himself.
Sujan also claimed that he was not aware of the suspension of the railway official.
Meanwhile, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has condemned the suspension of the TTE.
TIB in a press release on Saturday said: “As such a situation has arisen involving the railways minister and the ticketless passengers using his identity, he should resign from his position temporarily for the sake of a fair and impartial investigation into the incident.”