Humiliating! Indian women's hockey team forced to sit on train floor

In what is a shameful indictment of the authorities four members of the Rio Olympics 2016 Indian womens hockey team were made to sit on the floor while they were travelling from Ranchi to Rourkela on the BokaroAllepey Express trainThe four players Deep Grace Ekka Namita Toppo Sunita Lakra and Lilima Minz from Odisha who were members of the Indian womens hockey team at the just concluded summer Olympics were made to sit on the floor of their bogey as their tickets were unconfirmed This despite them being railway employees who dont require their tickets to be booked prior to commencement of the journeyTo make matters worse this incident took place on a day that Indian Rio Olympic medallists Sakshi Malik PV Sindhu finallist Dipa Karmakar and badminton coach P Gopichand with being rewarded with BMWsTHIS IS THE INDIAN WOMENS HOCKEY TEAM RETURNING HOME FROM RIOLets give a warm welcome to our Womens Hockey Team as they arrive home from Rio2016 httpstcooQJ1sdXF4n pictwittercomzDCPGMYV2Jmdash Hockey India TheHockeyIndia August 25 2016Activists have slammed the incident and called on Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs Vijay Goel to register a case of inhuman treatment negligence and exploitation against railway officialsSince they are railway employees and donrsquot need to buy train tickets the TTE travel ticket examiner should have arranged seats for themActivists demand actionWoman activist Brinda Adige told a news agency ldquoThese lsquoBabusrsquo officials have no reason at all to be there they have not contributed in anyway neither in advising the team nor in seeing to the teams well being and are travelling in business class whereas they have made the players travel unreserved some travelled sitting on the floor of their trainrdquoldquoHow can this kind of injustice be tolerated Why havenrsquot these officials been thrown out of the trainrdquo she askedNirmala Sawant another activist told the news agency ldquoI think this is very shameful for us as Indian citizens and at the same time Olympics participants bring pride to the nationhellipit is quite depressing and I think the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu should take immediate action so that this kind of injustice is not caused to any sportspersonrdquoIndian Railways refutes reportRefuting the reports the Indian Railways on Monday asserted that the travelling hockey players held no grudge against themThe news reports about Womens hockey team after their return from Rio Olympics being forced to sit on the floor while they were travelling from Ranchi to Rourkela via BokaroAllepey Express train is completely false Also the information that of the TTE asked them to sit on the floor of the bogey of the train is untrue the statement saidThe Railway Ministry said the hockey players on reaching the Ranchi airport went to the station and took the train without any information to the Indian Railways who would be in a better position to make appropriate arrangements for the playersHowever when the players boarded the train with unconfirmed tickets the TTE took only 20 minutes to make seats available to them the statement addedThe statement further added that the players hold no grudge against the Indian Railways and the same was communicated by them to the Indian Railways authoritiesThey also said that the players were in a hurry to meet their family members and hence preponed the plan which led to the confusion said the statementTWITTERATI DEMAND PROBE AND A LITTLE RESPECT FOR OLYMPIANSnarendramodi sir please take action on the treatment of womens hockey team They are not asking for much Just some respectmdash Siddhesh Padte sidmaster20 August 29 2016India womens Hockey team given sub standard facility in India Shame How will the sport flourish if they are given such treatmentmdash Siddhesh Padte sidmaster20 August 29 2016sureshpprabhu Best Olympics performers rewarded with luxury cars while womens hockey team couldnt even be provided with berth on a trainmdash Anil Bholla AnilBholla August 29 2016With Agency Inputs