A septuagenarian was denied entry into Shatabdi Express despite having a confirmed ticket, allegedly for “wearing a dhoti and carrying a cloth bag and an umbrella”.

“I was not allowed to board the train because I was wearing a dhoti. The policeman and an attendant standing near a coach asked me to go away,” Baba Ram Awadh Das (72) told reporters in Etawah.

Das claimed that he had a reserved ticket in coach C-2, seat number 72 of 12033 Kanpur-New Delhi Shatabdi Express for July 4. The train reached Etawah station at 7:40 pm and as he tried to board it, the cops standing at the gate objected to his attire. Later the cops and coach attendant cracked jokes on his attire and asked him to deboard the train.

“I showed them my ticket but they refused to listen to me and forced me to alight the train. The train left after the two-minute halt and I was left stranded at the station,” Das said.

Later, Das met station master Prince Raj Yadav and narrated his ordeal. The officer offered him a seat in Magadh Express, which was to come next, but Das declined the help saying that he had been insulted by the Railways and wrote his complaint in the log book with the station manager.

Etawah railway station superintendent Puranmal Meena told reporters on Friday that Das had filed a written complaint. 

“I am told that he accidentally reached the generator coach where a cop probably asked him to go which Das took it otherwise. As he was not accompanied by any person, he failed to understand why the policeman asked him to go,” he said.

Baba Ram Awadh Das is a native of Barabanki  and was going to meet his disciple in Ghaziabad. Das said that though he had not seen Mahatma Gandhi being thrown out from the train in South Africa, but the incident relating to him was very similar to Britishers treating the coloured people.