Fiasco at Margao station sees hundreds left behind after being called for train

MARGAO: A paradox of human emotions played out at Margao railway station late on Friday evening. As the Shramik special train to Reva and Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, chugged out of the station, police personnel and state officials lined up on the platform and clapped in unison, a dignified farewell for 1,464 passengers. But metres away, hundreds of migrant workers who couldn’t make it on the train faced the wrath of the police after they refused to disperse even after the train left.
“I left Sakhali early in the morning by bus, even though the SMS message I received asked me to report at the station by 4pm,” one migrant worker, who was detained by police for “instigating” the crowd, said. “After standing in the Sun all day with no meals and water, what we got is a thrashing by the police, forget about being allowed to board the train.” Several others who didn’t make it on the train showed TOI text messages asking them to report at the station by 4pm on Friday.
‘Will send them home by next train to MP’
After police action, some order was restored at the site, and the migrants left behind were taken to the shelter home in Navelim. The Covid task force’s incident commander for Margao, Ajit Panchwadkar, confirmed that 550 migrants who missed the train were accommodated in the camp.
“They had come to the station on their own after learning about the train,” Panchwadkar told TOI. “But we couldn’t simply leave them to their own resources. The sudden surge in the number of inmates at the shelter home meant we had to make some last-minute arrangements to provide them with bedding and meals. Arrangements will be made by the district administration to send them home by the next train to MP.”
However, Friday’s episode has brought to the fore serious defects in passenger management by the district administration. “It is heartbreaking to see so many homeless migrants, many of whom had women with kids in their arms with them, being driven away after the train left,” said a senior official overseeing security at the station. “A similar situation occured two days ago for the train to Una, Himachal Pradesh, when 400 were left behind. The administration should have learnt from that and avoided a repeat of the situation.”
Explaining Friday’s debacle, a senior official said, “We had made sent messages to 850 people from MP who had registered with us, to board the train. As many from MP housed in various shelter homes had also registered to go back, we expected that the number would be sufficient to be accommodated on the train. However, besides the ones registered with us, many unregistered ones also rushed to the railway station. We allowed them to board the train on first come first served basis.”
At the railway station, however, the district administration had made impeccable arrangements to facilitate a hassle-free journey. From registration of passengers to pre-boarding medical screening to distribution of tickets to provision of journey meals and water, the well-synchronised tasks ensured that the train left the station at the scheduled time. Also, Konkan Railway’s ticket checkers and RPF personnel guided passengers to their allotted seats, thereby ensuring that no ticketless passengers boarded the train.
The 24-coach train will reach their destination stations in the wee hours of Sunday.