Farmers’ protest leaves train passengers harried

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 29

Passengers were put to undue inconvenience as several trains remained suspended for hours together after members of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee blocked the busy Amritsar-Delhi railway line at Devidas Pura village near here on Sunday.

Hundreds of passengers who were to travel in the Amritsar-Sealdah Express, which was to depart at 1.25 pm, kept waiting at platform number 3 for hours. Amanpreet Singh said he intended to travel to Kanpur for business purposes and his ticket was booked in advance. His business trip required visiting several small and big stations of that region. Now his trip would be stretched and money invested on advance hotel booking would go down the drain.

Popular trains like the New Delhi-Amritsar Swarn Shatabdi, which was to arrive at 1.25 pm, and Shan-e-Punjab, which was to arrive at 2.15 pm, arrived hours behind their original schedule.

After alighting at the local railway station, Sunil Seth of Delhi said his already fixed entire schedule went haywire. He deliberately got the ticket booked for the morning train to reach here in the middle of the day to finish some important work before he called it a day. Now, he has to re-arrange the entire plan as his family was also accompanying him.

Those who wanted to travel to and fro between Amritsar and Qadian were highly upset as both up and down trains were cancelled. They had to go for bus travel to reach their destination. Barring this pair of trains, all other trains on the Amritsar-Pathankot railway section plied smoothly.