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The man was seen wandering around Jorihar Market in Chattarpur, wearing a white kurta with the Wester Railways symbol on one side as seen on linens available on trains.
This came after a report revealed that thousands of bed covers had disappeared over the past five years alone (Photo: Instagram/@ranjeet_official24)
A few days ago, an RTI-based investigation brought the issue of missing railway bases back into focus. The report revealed that thousands of sheets, blankets and towels have disappeared from air conditioning coaches over the past few years.
While passengers who take those linens don’t even think twice, the burden of missing items falls on the employees, whose salaries are being reduced to recover the cost.
Amidst this, a video from Madhya Pradesh has gone viral for an unexpected reason. The clip, posted on Instagram by a content creator named Ranjit Singh, showed an elderly man strolling through Jorihar Market in Chhatarpur district wearing a white kurta stitched from what appears to be an Indian Railways bedsheet.
The creator expressed his surprise after seeing the man wearing the kurta. “Look at this uncle in Jorihar market. He is wearing a Western Railway kurta and walking around happily,” he said in the video.
He said he was shocked when he noticed what the man was wearing, and stated that the man in the kurta seemed cautious about whether he would be photographed or not. But later he was unfazed. He walked around confidently in a kurta.
The Internet reacts
The clip quickly went viral on social media, with many users linking it to the recent report in the Indian Express, which reported missing railway covers. On the other hand, some users responded with humor while others called on the authorities to take action.
One person wrote: “The railways are yours” He took that line seriously.
“Balenciaga what?” joked the user.
“He’s a brand ambassador,” another person jokingly wrote.
“In the first place, how did they get access to this bed sheet? This is a failure on the part of the railway authorities, as they are allowing local passengers to enter the 3AC coach. There are no strict rules or laws being enforced. Very soon these people will be standing in the 1AC while the police and railway authorities turn a blind eye,” another person said.
Meanwhile, another user revealed that old bed sheets are often auctioned and a kurta can be made from one of them, writing: “Hi, old bed sheets are auctioned by railways. The buyer can then reuse them and sell them. Just wanted to draw your attention to this. Even this is a possibility.. that the person may have bought it.”
It cannot be independently verified how the man in the video obtained the Western Railway branded kurta.
Nearly Rs 1.27 lakh crore worth of AC coaches of Indian Railways were stolen between January 2022 and May 2026. This resulted in losses of over Rs 104 crore to linen contractors. Face towels were the most stolen item, with 46.54 lakh lost.
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