The Railway Protection Force (RPF) of Western Railway (WR) swung into action on Thursday afternoon and arrested a man within hours of FPJ's online report on Wednesday about a viral video showing him throwing a gutka packet in a train coach and gloating over it.
The FPJ had on Thursday morning published the print version of the online post, which showed the man flashing a victory sign while refusing to pick up the empty pouch.
Man littered AC local
The man, identified as Manan Nilesh Gager, 29, works at a hotel in Grant Road. On May 2, he boarded an AC local train at Grant Road around 8.35pm. He opened a gutka packet, put the contents into his mouth and threw the empty pouch.
When a fellow passenger asked him not to litter the train and, instead, keep the empty pouch in his pocket, Gager started quarrelling. The co-passenger told Gager that he would shoot a video of him but Gager responded that he did not care. The co-passenger then tweeted the video, which went viral with the twitterati demanding strict action.
Identified through facial recognition technology
“With the help of the facial recognition technology in our CCTV cameras, we learnt that the person concerned often boarded trains at Mira Road. We sent a team in mufti to Mira Road station to keep watch. On Thursday afternoon, our team spotted him and arrested him,” an RPF official told FPJ.
“Action was taken against him under section 145 of the Railway Act," the official said.
Accused presented before magistrate
Gager was produced before a magistrate's court at Andheri. The man not only accepted his guilty, but also, for good measure, appealed to fellow commuters to keep railway stations and trains clean.
Gager was released after a fine of Rs 200 was imposed on him. Local commuters were all praise for the FPJ and the RPF. “WR has installed hundreds of cameras with facial recognition systems at entry points of all stations and uploaded photos of history-sheeters. When a suspect visits a railway station, the cameras are able to identify the persons concerned and alert the RPF control room immediately,” a WR official said.
