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Kuka Nella RajuA railway employee, alleging ill treatment by his senior officer, has brought matters to a head by filing a non-cognisable offence against the officer at Colaba police station yesterday.

Kuka Nella Raju, 24, a bungalow peon at the official residence of P S Kotangale, chief electric engineer (construction), Western Railway, said he filed the complaint after being at the receiving end of beatings and abuse at the hands of the Kotangale family for months.

I am taking this extreme step after all their assurances proved hollow and the abuse became a daily affair, Raju alleged. Raju had written letters to the general manager of Western Railway (WR) and the Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar pleading his case.

Raju said the problems started when he filed a complaint in the labour court, stating that he had not received his salary for six months (see box). Matters came to a head on Tuesday when Kotangale was informed about the hearing at the court.

His anger was uncontrollable and he started slapping me, taunting me how I had the guts to take on a senior officer in court, Raju said.

He added, I only hope what I have done does not affect my brothers job as a railway peon in Jabalpur. He is now feeding the family, said a distraught Raju, who is being helped by other railway peons.

When contacted, Kotangale said he was shocked at the charges levelled against him. I have no idea why he is doing this to me. Why would a senior officer like me do something of this sort to a bungalow peon? I recruited him after all. I would have sacked him rather than beat him up. He has been working very well for the past few days as well. I am hurt, said Kotangale.

According to Kotangale, Raju obviously does not want to work as a bungalow peon and wants to get a job as an office errand boy and had therefore fabricated the allegations. But I do not have the power to shift him. I think he is being provoked by someone, said Kotangale.

Rajus story

Raju joined the railways on November 30, 2000 as a help at Kotangales bungalow when the latter was additional divisional railway manager of the South Eastern Railways Kharagpur division. He accompanied Kotangale when he was transferred as chief workshop manager at Dahod in Gujarat in August 2001.

When Kotangale was shifted to Mumbai as chief electric engineer (construction), Raju came with him. However, he says that instead of working in Kotangales official residence at East Villa in Badhwar Park, Colaba, he was sent to Nagpur to work in his house there, which is against railway rules. Because he could not sign the railway register at Churchgate every day, he was sacked and not paid for six months.

All the while, I was working at Kotangale sahabs Nagpur residence as per his instructions, working there against railway rules which stipulate a bungalow peon must serve at an officers official residence, said Raju.