Bloggers in Kirov have recruited Governor Nikita Belykh in their search for a ticket collector who shoved a third-grader off a bus late last month, news reports said.
The incident occurred on Dec. 21, when the boy reportedly boarded a bus using a valid ticket but was then shoved off by the ticket collector for refusing to pay a 15 ruble fee to transport his "heavy" backpack, Lenta.ru reported.
The boy's father, Sergei Ashikhmin, took his story to the media after local police told him that nothing could be done over the matter. After the story broke in the regional newspaper Vyatka, Governor Belykh said on his Twitter account: "We'll get to the bottom of it."
Ashikhmin, who believes the ticket collector was trying to extort money from his son, has reportedly appealed to the regional prosecutor. He says that he doesn't actually want the ticket collector jailed, but simply wants her to be punished, "since such actions need to be answered for."
