Mumbai: Around 1,500 farmers, who were headed for Kota, are now stuck at an unfamiliar Madhya Pradesh railway station after their train travelled 160 kilometres in the wrong direction. Now, the railway authorities don’t know what to do with them.
The farmers were returning to Rajasthan and Maharashtra after attending the Kisan Yatra protest rally in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Monday. The special train that was arranged from Maharashtra for the thousands of protesting farmers took a wrong route and left these 1494 farmers stranded in Madhya Pradesh’s Banmore station near Gwalior.
According to sources, the railway authorities gave a wrong signal to the train at the Mathura station, which led to the train landing up in Madhya Pradesh instead of Maharashtra.
Railway officers had no clue whatsoever as to how did the train land up at Banmore, 160 km off its original route. Neither did they have a route plan available for the train to move ahead.
“We left Delhi at 10pm on Tuesday and woke up at 6am to find ourselves at Banmore railway station in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. After Agra, we had to move towards Kota in Rajasthan, however, due to serious negligence by the Railways, we are now in in MP,” passenger Mahavir Patil told reporter.
The train carrying 1,494 farmers including 200 women was booked by farmers from Kohlapur in Maharashtra, for Rs 39 lakhs.
When media spoke to one of the stranded passengers who was headed for Kohlapur, he said they have been delayed by 5-6 hours.
As the passengers approached the station master for information, he pleaded ignorance about the route plan and declined to give them a green signal. After a delay of over one and half hour, the passengers then ran out of patience and created a ruckus by stopping a goods train.
Passenger S Madanaike said, “When we spoke to the driver, he said there was a wrong signal at the Mathura railway station which caused this goof up. It looks like we will only reach by Thursday morning.”
