India: TVs Play Porn, Railway Passengers Livid

Jan. 16, 2012
Passengers waiting at the Bhubaneswar Railway Station here on Saturday afternoon were shocked to see the 'train information' TV sets showing pornographic content.

BHUBANESWAR, Jan. 15 -- Passengers waiting at the Bhubaneswar Railway Station here on Saturday afternoon were shocked to see the 'train information' TV sets showing pornographic content.

The outraged travellers and their kin took the Station Manager to task before the Railway Protection Force (RPF) was intimated about the bizarre incident.

The operator at the transmission room was detained and the systems were seized by the RPF. The East Coast Railway (ECoR) authorities said stringent action would be taken against those responsible for such an act.

The incident occurred at about 3.15 pm. The TV sets, centrally-operated, are installed not only on the platforms but also in the waiting halls.

As the objectionable videos started to play, the initial reaction was that of shock. Soon the passengers went to the Station Manager's office to lodge a complaint even as the TV sets continued playing the film.

As soon as the RPF was informed, its personnel tried to locate the transmission room from where the contents are broadcast.

The TV sets play train information, passenger safety instructions, commercials as well as spiritual music and videos. Since not many knew where the room was, it took the railway officials a while to stop the sleaze.

"We switched off the system and have detained the operator Ashutosh Swain who is being quizzed," RPF Inspector Barun Behera said.

The railways has leased out the transmission to Cuttack-based Sagar Vision which had appointed Ashutosh as the operator. The RPF was trying to contact the proprietor of the firm in this connection.

Ashutosh, on his part, said he had the pornographic clips stored in the memory card of his mobile phone. Since he wanted to scan the card, he took it out of the handset and inserted it in the central processing unit (CPU) of the TV system. That's when the clips started playing across the TV sets.

The RPF said Ashutosh could be booked under Section 145 of the Railway Act for using the obscene content. The Government Railway Police will also be consulted. Published by HT Syndication with permission from New Indian Express. For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at [email protected]

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