2 discom staffers forcibly remove elderly woman’s belongings in MP; suspended

PTI | | Posted Lingamgunta Nirmitha Rao

Two staffers of a power dribution company were suspended after a video surfaced on social media of them forcibly removing the belongings of an elderly woman even as she ran after them in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar drict, an official said on Sunday.

Two line attendants (Category II) of East Power Dribution Company stationed in Deori have been suspended. (Representational Image)

As per an official release, Sagar collector Dipak Arya has suspended two line attendants (Category II) of East Power Dribution Company stationed in Deori for demonstrating disrespectful and inappropriate behaviour and not following the rule book.
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Apart from this, two other outsourced contractual workers with the Discom have been sacked, it said. One of the contractual workers was arrested after an FIR was regered against him, the release stated. A video of the incident, which took place on Saturday shows the elderly woman, in a half-naked state, running after Discom staffers, who were forcibly removing her belongings from her shanty and loading it in a vehicle.
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Slamming the BJP-led state government, the Madhya Pradesh Congress posted the video of the incident on its Twitter handle. The elderly woman was not even allowed to bathe when power company personnel reached her place to recover electricity dues, the party claimed in a tweet.
The woman was insulted publicly and her belongings were removed from her house, it alleged. Congress MP Digvijaya Singh and former Union Miner Arun Yadav expressed deep concern over the inhumane manner in which staffers of the power dribution companies were recovering electricity bills from defaulters.