China gets tough on train ‘seat robbers’ who refuse to move
- Two women taken into custody after they defy orders to vacate seats booked by others
Two Chinese rail passengers have been detained for disrupting public order after they refused to vacate allocated seats, the first reported cases of their kind in the country.
One woman, identified only by her surname Li, was ordered to serve seven days in custody over a row that erupted on a high-speed train from Wuxi in Jiangsu province last week, the Yangtse Evening News reported on Thursday.
Li argued with a man who claimed he had reserved the seat she was in, the report quoted railway police as saying.
Other passengers complained and summoned train staff and police, but Li still refused to budge.
“This is your seat? Who said so? Is your name on the seat?” the woman was quoted as saying.
Li was taken into custody when the train stopped at Nanjing South Railway Station, also in Jiangsu province.