BENGALURU: On Tuesday morning, hundreds of passengers waiting to board their trains at the KSR railway station were ordered to get outside the premises of the station and the area cordoned off by barricades by the Government Railway Police citing lack of social distancing. Top railway authorities had to intervene and restore order at the station by insisting the passengers be brought inside, say railway sources.
A bizarre scene played out right from 7 am on the Station Road with passengers huddled on the footpath and the road with their luggage. “Many were passengers who had to board long distance trains in the night or even early next morning. Fearing they would miss their train due to the lack of public transport on account of Covid curfew in the State, they arrived much earlier,” said a senior railway official. “Families were found sprawled on the road with bedsheets,” he added.
Divisional Railway Manager A K Verma who visited the spot insisted all the passengers be allowed inside the station and permitted to wait at the platforms of the station or other sheltered spaces if they had a valid travel ticket or platform ticket, said another official. They were finally let inside after spending four hours on the roads outside, he added. “It was a very foolish thing to do. In fact, the passengers actually ended up crowding together outside the station putting them at risk of infection,” a top railway official said.
Asked about it, Additional Director General of Police, Railways, Bhaskar Rao, vehemently denied that he had given any such orders to the GRP.
“It will be a very inhuman thing to do. I had in fact arranged food for all the passengers inside the station with the help of ISKCON and another agency,” he said.
However, multiple sources within the railway station called up this reporter to speak about the incident. Meanwhile, the Yesvantpur railway station, which runs trains to Bihar, UP and Kolkata has been witnessing a massive crowd of passengers from 6 am to 12 noon daily inside.