Newspaper with divisive articles on Islam found on Chennai bound train

Bengaluru: Following objections from Railway passengers for finding copies of unauthorised publication that included divisive articles, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) warned its onboard services licensee.

On the Bengaluru-Chennai Shatabdi Express, copies of a publication named Aryavarth Express, which features controversial articles titled "Genocide of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, under Islamic rule needs to be recognised" and "UN should label Aurangzeb as perpetuator of holocaust like Hitler" on its front page, among others, were found to have been distributed, according to The Indian Express report.

Rajni Hasija, Chairman and Managing Director of IRCTC, was quoted by The Indian Express saying that the onboard licensee was warned for violating the contract rules as it has permission to provide only complimentary copies of Deccan Herald and a Kannada paper.

Meanwhile, the licensee is said to have claimed that the vendor of the newspapers had circulated the supplement inserting it into the approved newspapers without his staff boys' knowledge.

The "newspaper" was flagged Friday morning by a Twitter user, Gopika Bakshi, who was on the train.

"This morning I boarded the Bangalore-Chennai Shatabdi Express only to be greeted by this blatantly propagandist publication on every other seat- The Aryavarth Express. Had never even heard of it. How is @IRCTCofficial allowing this???," she tweeted along with a photograph of the publication.

Other users, too, raised questions on whether it was being officially circulated by the Railways-controlled company.