RCF employees block rail traffic after suicide of employee

Kapurthala, Apr 1 (UNI) Tension mounted at Rail Coach Factory (RCF) here as employees and their families today detained the Jammu bound Ahmedabad-Jammu Tawi mail train for more than two hours by squatting on the Jalandhar-Ferozepur railway track near the gate of RCF following the suicide committed by an employee of the factory.

Budh Singh committed suicide yesterday and his family had alleged that he took the extreme step because he was mentally depressed apprehending losing his job in the proposed conversion of RCF to a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) as announced by the Railway Minister.

The agitating employees were demanding the registration of criminal case against the General Manager of the factory and his immediate transfer blaming him for the incident.

The employees have been agitating for the past more than one month to protest against the conversion of RCF into a PSU.

Employees and their families while going towards the cremation ground to perform the last rites of Budh Singh stopped near gate of the factory and sat on the rail track this afternnon and detained the Jammu bound Ahmedabad train more than two hours.

MP from Jalandhar Rana Gurjit Singh (Cong) and Sultanpur Lodhi MLA Upinderjit Kaur (Akali) also reached the spot to express their sympathies with the bereaved family and agitating employees.

Widow of the deceased Mrs Darshan Kaur demanded adequate compensation as she and her two children had no means of livelihood as their four acres of land was already acquired at the time of setting up of the factory.

On the assurance given by MP that police would give justice to the victims in the inquiry and GM would be transferred, the agitating employees left for the cremation ground to perform the last rites.

SSP Rajiv Ahir told media persons that he had deputed SP (Headquarter) Harbhajan Singh to inquire into the incident and submit the report immediately.

Inquiries from the local railway station revealed that four trains remained stranded at different stations for more than two hours due to the blockage of rail track at RCF halt station. The trains affected included Jammu Tawi-Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad-Jammu Tawi, 7JF Jalandhar-Ferozepur and 8JF Ferozepur-Jalandhar.

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