RailEnquiry

Several thousand passengers were stranded for nearly two hours at Howrah station on Monday as a mob enforced a rail blockade and attacked trains to protest the death of a woman on the tracks.More than 25 long-distance trains, including Kalka Mail, Mumbai Mail, Digha Duronto Express and Yeshwantpur Express, and 50 local trains of Eastern and South Eastern railways were stranded at Howrah station while several Howrah-bound trains remained stuck at various points between 8pm and 9.50pm.Passengers complained of suffocation and discomfort because of overcrowding on platforms even as the crowd spilled onto Howrah bridge, leading to snarls on Strand Road and Brabourne Road, police said.“There’s no place to sit and it’s suffocating,” said Sanjay Mukherjee, who reached Howrah around 8pm with his wife, daughter and a friend. The Southern Avenue residents were to take the Howrah-Puri Weekly Express, scheduled to leave at 8.55pm but delayed by more than two hours.The disruptions began after a middle-aged woman was run over by a Howrah-bound Sheoraphuli local near the Tikiapara maintenance yard around 7.30pm.“Hundreds staged blockades and started throwing stones at trains. We were forced to stop train services,” said Anirban Dutta, the divisional railway manager of Howrah. An assistant driver of Yeshwantpur Express suffered head injury after a stone thrown by one of the agitators hit him.

Railway officials alleged police arrived late. “We contacted senior officials of the state government, yet the response from police was late. Railway Protection Force personnel were sent although they are not in charge of maintaining law and order,” an Eastern Railway official said.

Junior railway minister Adhir Chowdhury alleged that the protests were politically motivated. “The violence was politically motivated and the state government should take responsibility. The ruling party had three railway ministers and they should know that trains can’t be run without the help of the state government,” he said.

Police officers in Howrah, however, denied turning up late. “We received information at 8pm and a team reached the spot within 15 minutes. But it took some time to control the mob,” said an officer.

Railway officials said by then, glass windows of several trains, including Yeshwantpur Express and Amritsar-Howrah Mail and some local trains, had been smashed. Witnesses said several protesters boarded stranded trains and attacked passengers.

Trains started leaving Howrah after 10pm but services did not become normal till late. Several local trains were cancelled, causing harassment to office-goers from the suburbs returning home after work.