Title - Protesters take city to ransom, residents fume Farmers block rail traffic

Ludhiana: The rail traffic in the region came to a complete halt on Wednesday afternoon as farmers led by of Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahana) resorted to "rail roko" for more than three hours to press their demand for a relief package for draught-hit farmers.Several trains were delayed by hours and thousands of passengers were inconvenienced. Railway officials said the 12919 Indore-Jammu Tawi Malwa Express and the 11057 Dadar-Amritsar Express trains were stranded at the Ludhiana railway station for more than two hours as protesters squatted at the Phillaur railway station, about 12 kms from Ludhiana.Among the down trains, the 12920 Jammu-Indore Malwa Express was held up at the Phagwara railway station for almost two hours, the 14674 Amritsar-Darbhanga Flying Mail commenced its run from the originating point more than two hours behind schedule while the 12472 Jammu-Mumbai Hapa Express was stopped at the Jalandhar railway station for nearly 40 minutes.As the 12497 Shan-e-Punjab and the 12029 Shatabdi Express running between New Delhi and Amritsar were detained on the outskirts of Amritsar at Manawala, the corresponding trains were also delayed for their run from Amritsar to New Delhi in the evening. Railway officials said the Shan-e-Punjab Express was running late by around two hours while the Shatabdi Express was delayed by more than 40 minutes.

Though the protest by farmers' bodies was lifted at around 4 pm, half-an-hour after the announced schedule, it would take the railway traffic some time to limp back to normal, senior officials of the Northern Railway said.

Indignant passengers aboard the trains which had to take a forced halt at the Ludhiana railway station blamed the government, the railway authorities for bowing down to the pressure tactics of protesting groups who hold thousands of passengers to ransom.

“If the farmers have some problems with the government, they should go and lay siege to the houses of the ministers concerned in the national or state capitals. Why the passengers are made to suffer and why should the Railways be targeted?" asked Kulbir Singh, a teacher who was travelling to Amritsar with his family on Dadar Express.

Activists of the BKU, the body which had led the protest along with 17 other organisations of farmers and farm workers, however, justified the agitation. "The government is indifferent to the plight of farmers who had suffered huge losses due to deficit rainfall,” a leader of the protesting group said.

If the problems were not being addressed by the government, farmers had no other choice but to resort to protest in order to make the government receptive, he added.