Pulled up short

The alacrity with which Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav dismissed the molestation case involving an IAS officer’s sister and a Railway Protection Force DIG left a lot of red faces in Rail Bhavan. Lalu had quoted RPF DG MK Sinha, when he told the media that “nothing of the sort had happened”. But the minister had to quickly revise his stance and say that the matter was being looked into. As the Railways formed a two-member inquiry team to save face, Lalu, according to sources, gave the DG a dressing down for “misleading” him. Despite one of their officers being in the line of fire, the RPF’s brass in Delhi were unanimous in their opinion that the minister should not have spoken so hastily. “All he needed to say was that the law would take its own course,” said an RPF official.