Another woman at Kherki Daula toll plaza assaulted

GURUGRAM: In the second incident this month, a woman toll collector was on Thursday morning physically assaulted by an unruly commuter at Kherki Daula toll plaza.

The incident occurred around 11 am in broad daylight, where the accused driver first verbally abused the woman, before assaulting her and tearing her clothes.

The entire incident was recorded in CCTV cameras at the toll booth. Gurugram police have registered a case and are searching for the accused. Reports suggest that the accused belong to nearby Shikohpur village.

Assaults and verbal abuse of toll booth employees is not new, but women toll booth employees being targetted is becoming a serious concern for law enforcement agencies.

Prior to this incident, another woman toll booth employee was assaulted by a commuter.

Ironically, female workers were employed by authorities at Kherki Daula toll plaza to reduce the violence which their male counterparts were being subjected to.

The various incidents of lawlessness at toll booths include shootouts, kidnapping and physical assaults on attendants working at the two booths.

Toll attendants have highlighted that there is often a lurking danger of violence while dealing with aggressive customers, who are often not willing to pay the toll and argue with the toll booth attendants in order to intimidate them.

Moreover, toll booth

attendants continue to bear the ire of local commuters, who accuse the former of harassing them in the name of charging them toll.

"A major problem is dealing with the local commuters. As per rules, we are not allowed to charge them. However, they have to show proper identitfication for this. As most of the people do not carry proper identity cards, the fact that we ask them to pay makes them angry and they start abusing us or, in some cases, even physically assault us," said a toll booth attendant, who asked for anonymity.