How far someone can go to get a free meal? Well, this 70 years old man can tell you! He contaminated his food with dead lizard so he could get free meals from Indian Railways. Yes, you read it right! A 70 years old man named Surender Pal has attempted this same stunt on several occasions before getting caught.
A senior divisional commercial manager found it fishy when he got repeated complaints of food with dead lizard from the same man, reported PTI. The officer then alerted the Indian Railways official after seeing the man’s trick to avail free food. In his last attempt before getting caught he put a lizard in the samosa and complained about it. Then officials arrested him and he confessed and even recorded a video in which he said he was using a “fish which cured mental illness” for his tricks.
In his defence, Surender Pal said, “I have done a wrong thing. I am an old man, I am mentally unstable, I have blood cancer. Please let me go. In Punjab, there is an ayurvedic medicine. I used a fish which cures bone diseases and mental illness.”
While the officials reprimanded him for tainting Indian Railway’s name, they did not punish him harshly. Till October, Railways had received more than 7,500 complaints from passengers over bad quality of food served on trains and imposed fines of about Rs 1.5 crore on vendors.