Mir Iqbal
—Excelsior/Younis Khaliq
PULWAMA, May 12: With absence of strong mechanism to ensure normal running of train service from South Kashmir’s Banihal Railway Station to Baramulla district in North Kashmir, the frequent train blockades by the protesters has left commuters worried.
The rail line has become a new protesting place for the people living along the track to demand redressal of the daily issues.
For registering their protest against Government even for a little demand, people including children and women rush to the track almost every other day and disrupt the train for hours, and ruin the time of office-goers, students and commoners.
Yesterday, thousands of commuters had to wait for hours till a police party reached on the spot to pacify protesters of Qazigund town of Kulgam district after a man was hit by train.
The railway officials maintained that the man jumped on the track and died when the train was running at full speed.
Similarly, train services were again disrupted for about two hours today as passengers protested against railway authorities at Panzgam village in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district for their failure to add more bogies to the train to cater to the increasing passenger rush.
“The people blocked the train to Srinagar from 8:15 am to 10:30 a.m. which resulted in the delay of two hours to the train passengers to reach to their destinations,” the worried passengers said.
Passengers also complained that due to frequent disruptions they missed their train service in Jammu as they didn’t reach there on time.
“Last week I had to reach Jammu Railway Station at 8:30 to catch the train to Bangalore, but I reached there at 10 in the evening as I was stuck here in a local village after our train was stopped by the people of Kakapora in Pulwama district,” said Abdul Rashid Bhat, a student.
Students also expressed their anger against the railway authorities for their failure to operate daily train service in Kashmir.
They alleged that scores among them at different instances missed their class exams and some even missed competent exams conducted at different colleges in Srinagar.
But the villagers who block the rail-line said that this is the one of the many ways to make their demand heard to the “deaf Government.”
Others protesters said that they halt the train as it has no space to accommodate them because of the over-crowdedness in the train boogies. They demanded more boogies to be added to the train.
“We can’t ensure normal service to our passengers till fool-proof security was not deployed on railway track,” an official of Northern Railway said wishing anonymity.
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