Dear Sirs
We (me, my wife, son, and daughter) are permanent residents of Trinidad and Tobago, which is situated in the Caribbean (North America). We are currently on a tour of Char Dham Yatra (Visiting four sacred places).
Our second train was from Dehradun to Varanasi Train No-12370 (PNR No. [protected]) on 13th July 2023 at 22.05. We received a text message at 19.32 PM that the train was terminated at Haridwar due to inclement weather and would commence from there.
Due to Shivraatri and millions of devotees in Haridwar, the vehicular access to Haridwar was closed, and the railway station was only accessible by walking approximately 10-12 kilometers.
We decided to board the train from Laksar station and took a taxi to Lakasr. Once we reached nearby, we realized that the convoy of Shiv devotees also crowded the road heading to Laksar. We walked approximately four kilometers and reached the city only to realize that Laksar railway station was flooded from all its surrounding accesses and was inaccessible.
We walked back to the place and took a taxi to Moradabad. While in the taxi, we noticed online that the train left from Haridwar at 00.01 AM. We reached Moradabad around 03.30 AM, but the train did not cross the Laksar Station.
The train arrived at Moradabad Station at 9.20 AM; until then, we were in paid waiting room. We board the train, only to realize that TTE sold our seats to some other passengers. We had four seats 13, 14, 15, and 16. Upon stressing that he cannot assign our seats to someone in extremely exceptional cases where the stations before Moradabad were inaccessible, he relocated two passengers from seats 15 and 16 to another coach.
Four o[censored]s traveled from Moradabad to Lucknow on seats 15 and 16. When we arrived at Lucknow, two passengers appeared with the ticket on these two seats. We gave one seat to them as one of them was an elderly sick person. From Lucknow to Varanasi, four o[censored]s traveled on one seat, 15. We were very uncomfortable during our whole journey and could not rest/sleep.
Also, the train arrived at Varanashi more than nine hours late than scheduled, we had pre-bookings for Puja/Artee in the evening, and all the money went into vain.
After facing so much trouble and spending so much more money on taxis, all of the trouble we faced was due to only a corrupt TTE. The train left at 00.01 AM from Haridwar and crossed the Laksar station over six hours later. It appears the train could not cross the flooded areas at night and crossed the flooded areas in the daylight. Meanwhile, the TTE sold our seats to other passengers while the train was not moving.
Therefore, we demand a refund of the fare from Dehradun to Moradabad and a refund for two passengers’ seat bookings. We also demand punishment for the corrupt TTE. I am available on Whatsapp on my foreign phone at +[protected] and on temporary local phones at [protected]. I am also willing to appear for evidence via any virtual mode of communication.
Kindly acknowledge the complaint.
Thanks and Regards
Deep Kumar
Mobile:- +[protected], [protected]
Indian Railways customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.
