Commuters bear brunt of farmers’ stir

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 7

Passengers at the Ludhiana railway station were at a receiving end due to the cancellation of several trains owing to farmers’ protest in Amritsar district.

Several trains were cancelled, while others were running behind schedule. A large number of passengers, who came to board trains for various stations, got stuck at the railway station.

The trains that were cancelled include the Amritsar-Chandigarh Intercity, Duplicate Howrah Express, Hirakund Express (Amritsar to Haridwar), Jan Sadharan, Ludhiana-Ambala Passenger, Hisar Passenger and trains (up-down) towards Ferozepur.

Apart from this, trains from Jammu, including Jan Sadharan, Chattisgarh Express, Howrah Mail, Tata Muri Express and Frontier Mail Express, were running behind schedule (4 to 10 hours).

Railway authorities sent the Shan-e-Punjab express back from Ludhiana railway station, while some trains returned from Beas (Amritsar) railway station.

Gurmukh Singh, a passenger, said: “We booked 12 seats for Nanded in Maharashtra and reached the railway station an hour in advance. But the authorities cancelled the train. Pretty harassed, we are now planning to return home. The protest of farmers spoiled our trip.”

There were some passengers who failed to board the train as the general bogies were overcrowded. In the absence of proper sitting arrangement, passengers were seen occupying the platforms and the foot overbridge, while some were even spotted taking a nap on water pipes.

Meanwhile, the police detained farmers to thwart their bid to block rail track at gate no A-88 near Phillaur.

More than 100 farmers, including union leaders, were detained at Ladhowal and Phillaur area. The Ladhowal police detained around 60 farmers at Hambran police post, who were heading towards Phillaur from Jagraon area.

The Phillaur police detained 30 farmers from various areas of Jalandhar and Ludhiana districts.

Kisan Unions have been protesting the policies of the state government which led to agrarian crisis in the state. The farmer unions gave a call for “rail roko andolan” to block various rail links in the state. Farmer unions were scheduled to block rail traffic at Phillaur on the Amritsar-Delhi rail link.