Ticket agent suicide: No evidence against CR officer, say police

In April 2013, Patel had been cleared to work as an agent and had acquired commercial space outside Dombivali railway station in July last year.

“The first site she had identified for her booth was on railway property, so she was told to find another. Soon after, she found a site close to the railway station and built her booth. She acquired a computer, printer and an internet connection. CR had also allotted her a roll of tickets to print. All that remained was for a CR official to authenticate her software,” said inspector Raghunath Dalvi of the MRA Marg police station.

However, when CR commercial inspector William Kerry came to her booth in July, he found that he could not authenticate her connection. “Everything was found to be working, so Kerry could not understand why his authentication wouldn’t work. He then wrote to BSNL to find out. BSNL replied that Patel had not paid the installation charges of Rs 2,000, which was why her internet connection had not been activated. Kerry instructed Patel to pay the fees as soon as possible, and also informed his superiors,” said Dalvi.

To Kerry’s surprise, however, Patel wrote to him, asking him cancel her allotment, the police said. “We still do not know what went wrong in those few days. Patel’s family has not been able to answer that question. We have inspected Patel’s files and found that the railways did everything by the book. So far, we have found nothing wrong on their part,” said Dalvi.

According to the police, Patel had paid a total of Rs 40,000 in a bank guarantee and safety deposit to work as an agent and wanted a refund immediately. “On her last visit to the CR office on December 22, she had been told to be patient as her request would take time to process. The next time she went to the office, however, she locked herself in the bathroom and set herself on fire,” said Dalvi.

srinath.rao@expressindia.com