‘Woman e-rickshaw driver assaulted by RPF personnel’

PRAYAGRAJ: A woman e-rickshaw driver was allegedly beaten up by RPF personnel for, what her husband said, refusing to give money to them.

However, senior RPF officials claimed that the woman misbehaved and attacked the RPF personnel when she was asked to take her vehicle away from the ‘no parking’ zone at Allahabad Railway Junction.

The officials said an FIR was lodged against her, under different sections of the Railway Act, and then she was taken for medical examination.

The woman’s husband claims that he and other relatives were not allowed to meet her at two government-run hospitals where the RPF personnel took her, here on Sunday.

Woman e-rickshaw driver Vandana Goel’s husband A Goel claimed that he received a call from another woman e-rickshaw driver informing him that RPF personnel had taken his wife to the police station. “I was not allowed to meet her at police station. They took her to Colvin hospital and later to SRN hospital but I was not allowed entry at both places,” he said.

“My wife was assaulted in the custody of RPF personnel and was not in a condition to speak and was crying with pain. She was illegally detained as she refused to give ‘charges’ to RPF personnel for picking up passengers from the railway station. They extort money from other e-rickshaw drivers regularly,” Goel alleged. IG RPF SN Pandey said she misbehaved and assaulted RPF personnel when they asked her to take her e-rickshaw away from ‘no parking’ zone. Late in the evening, the woman’s husband said the cops have not released his wife and taken her to a shelter home.