Maharashtra: Woman passenger in distress tweets to Suresh Prabhu, gets help

Mumbai: A woman passenger travelling alone on an outstation train in Maharashtra was immediately attended to by authorities after she sought help from Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu through a tweet.

The commuter, identified as Namrata Mahajan, tweet to Prabhu at 6.59 pm while she was passing through Shegaon railway station in Buldana district on Thursday.

"@RailMinIndia plz plz help in train no 18030. One male passenger harassing me at Shegaon. I am in train and terrified," she tweeted.

Central Railway chief PRO, Narendra Patil said a senior officer, Ved Prakash, immediately noted the tweet and contacted him to do the needful to help the woman.

"But she (Mahajan) has not given full details of the train she was travelling in. So a reply seeking details of her train and her berth position was sent to her Twitter handle.

She was also asked to contact security helpline number 182 which she did and gave details about her position via twitter.

As the train reached Bhusaval railway station in 40 minutes, the woman was immediately attended by RPF jawans.

Relieved after getting the assistance, Mahajan thanked the minister saying, "@RailMinIndia sir help reached to me. Thanks a lot sir."

When asked why she felt distressed, Patil said, "The man had a wait-listed ticket and his behaviour and body language did not seem to be decent and since Mahajan was travelling alone, she felt terrified."

The male passenger was shifted to another coach as he had a valid ticket.