IT Correspondent
Mumbai, May 20
In a repeat incident, a crowd of over 2,000 migrant workers gathered near Bandra railway Terminus in North West Mumbai, in an attempt to board a “Shramik special” train that was bound for Bihar, on Tuesday.
The incident occurred at around 11.30 AM as a message about a “Shramik special train” headed for Bihar spread among migrant workers. The workers started walking towards the terminus along with their luggage in an attempt to board the train. However, only 1,700 people were permitted to board the train and the rest were not allowed inside the terminus.
“A Shramik special train was scheduled for Purnia from Bandra Terminus for which passengers, registered with the state authorities, were to travel. But many people who were not registered and not called by the state authorities gathered on the bridge and on the road near the station.
“The bonafide passengers were checked and allowed to enter the station by state machinery and the train left Bandra Terminus at about 12 PM with 1,700 labourers and their families.
The police had a tough time clearing the crowd since those who could not get entry into the train did not leave and continued to raise slogans demanding arrangement of additional train to enable them to leave for their native place. The confusion was compounded when rumours were spread that another train will be leaving for Bihar in the evening. Eventually at around 2 PM, those waiting outside the station were asked to leave and the crowd was cleared from the area by police,” chief public relation officer, western railway, Ravinder Bhakar said.
It may be recalled that on 14 April in the first migrant crisis, over thousand migrants had gathered at Bandra, with a slogan “Chalo Ghar Ki Or” (proceed to your native homes) and had demanded that the Maharashtra Government should immediately provide transport to them. Subsequently self styled leader of the migrant worker Vinay Dubey was arrested from Navi Mumbai on charges of instigating workers by the police.
The police have decided to take stringent action against rumour mongers, because of whom, the law and order is going haywire, besides threatening to spread the COVID-19, due to gathering of people in large number of in violation of physical distancing norms. Besides, it is ironical that despite appeals by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray that the state government has been paying for train fare and the workers should follow the protocol, this type of agitation flared up.
In the meanwhile With the Union government scrapping the need of obtain the consent of destination states to dispatch a “Shramik Special” train, the Pune district administration plans to send out 11 such trains per day to various states, especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, to ferry the lakhs of workers stuck in Maharashtra. Till now, authorities have been running four to five trains a day. The district administration had earlier planned to send only two trains on Wednesday, but after the latest directive, six more trains have been added to the schedule, said Pune Collector Naval Kishore Ram. “Eight trains will be dispatched from Pune district, taking over 11,000 passengers home,” he added.
Up till now, Uttar Pradesh has allowed (641 incoming trains), followed by Bihar (310), Madhya Pradesh (89) and Jharkhand (56). While West Bengal has allowed (09) such trains and Chhattisgarh(14). Besides the Gujarat has flagged off the maximum number of outgoing trains (496), followed by Maharashtra (266) and Punjab and till now,
