Title - Day 2: NE exodus continues

Despite Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar’s assurance that the state government has taken all measures to ensure the safety of people from the North-Eastern states, their exodus continued for the second day on Thursday. Several thousand North-Easterners travelled by four trains — three special and one regular — to their home states on Thursday. According to statistics obtained from SWR, Mysore Division, in the Bangalore-Guwahati Express (Train No 12509), which runs three days a week, besides all the 17 reserved coaches and unreserved tickets of two coaches being full, the waiting list for two-tier AC, 3-tier AC and sleeper coach has crossed more than 400 in all the three categories in a day. The Bangalore railway station was filled with people from the Northeast. Thousands of people stood in long queues to buy tickets. The railways had opened all the 17 counters to sell unreserved tickets. Initially, railways had plans to operate only two trains in the evening, including the regular train, but they were forced to run two more special trains in the night owing to pressure from various quarters. The railway staff were busy throughout the day in organising coaches to run the special trains. High drama prevailed at the railway station as leaders of various political parties were calling on the people belonging to Northeastern states and arranging food and water for them. Urban Development Minister S Suresh Kumar too visited the station and appealed to the people to stay back. However, there were no takers to his assurance as they continued to throng the counters to buy tickets. Meanwhile, two ministers from Assam are coming on Friday to Bangalore to appeal to the N-E people not to leave Bangalore, saying Karnataka was safe for them. Besides, a delegation of officials from Assam, led by the deputy secretary, is learnt to have arrived in the city to take stock of the situation. Karnataka DG & IGP Lalrokhuma Pachuau held a peace committee meeting in which leaders of various religious communities participated. They agreed to extend full cooperation to the government to help build confidence among N-E people.