KOLKATA: Disruptive politics left around 73 Class XII students and 12 teachers of The BSS School, Ballygunge, along with three kids aged below five, cooped up inside a compartment of the stranded Chennai-Santragachhi Superfast Express at Odisha’s Basta, 250km from Kolkata, for more than 15 hours since Monday morning.
The students’ parents made frantic calls to their daughters, while the 12 teachers on board, including the principal and vice-principal, desperately tried to arrange for meals. The parents also contacted the railway authorities expressing concern about their daughters’ safety. Thereafter, Railway Protection Force jawans were deployed around the coach.
The students had left for Visakhapatnam on Friday on an educational excursion. Three of the 12 teachers also took their toddlers along, taking the team’s strength to 88. On the way back, they took the Chennai-Santragachhi Superfast Express, which left Visakhapatnam at 8.25pm on Sunday and was scheduled to reach Santragachhi at 10.30pm on Monday.
When the train stopped at Odisha’s Rupsa Junction around 7.30am on Monday, the group thought it was just another halt. But it turned out to be the beginning of a long ordeal. “When the train remained stalled at Rupsa, we got worried and started making inquiries about the cause of delay. The ticket checker told us that a rail roko by tribals in Bengal was holding us up. He couldn’t tell us when the train would start moving. We ate whatever food we had boarded the train with. There were only biscuits and cakes for the girls. We managed to contact the railway staff who arranged for a non-vegetarian lunch in the pantry car,” said BSS principal Sunita Sen.
“But there was another local bandh in the Rupsa area and all shops around the railway junction were closed. So there was no option to buy food or water from outside,” said teacher Sarmistha Sarkar. Around 3pm, the train moved to Basta, the next station. And after a few hours, it left that station too and stopped in the middle of nowhere, said a teacher. Till reports last came in, the train was taken back to Balasore.
“We enjoyed our trip, but we never imagined that we would have to go through such an ordeal,” said Disha Sarkar, a student who lives in Tangra.
School students cooped up inside the train at Basta station on Monday
