Goa: ‘Don’t need money or meals, allow us to board the train’

MARGAO: Minutes after the only Shramik Special left from Margao on Thursday evening, the Manohar Parrikar indoor stadium at Navelim was filled to the brim with over 4,000 migrants, who were driven away from the railway station. Even as they were accommodated in the government-designated shelter home, 1,000 more were seen camping outside until late night.
“We are trying to make meal arrangements as best as we can for those of whom we have accommodated in the shelter home,” incident commander of the Covid task force for Margao, Ajit Panchwadkar told TOI. This meant it was more than likely that most of the migrants, already weary and famished, would have to go without meals. As for the over 1,000 people camping outside the shelter home, there was hardly any chance of a meal coming their way.
“We need no mercy, no meals nor money, just allow us to board a train home. We have been spending sleepless nights in the open for the last few days,” said one of the stranded migrants. As they have already left their rented rooms, there is no place where they can return to for the night.
With no proper mechanism for dissemination of information to the migrants wanting to leave for their native places, the helpless and homeless workers are thronging the Margao railway station every day in the hope of catching a homeward-bound train. Thursday was no different.
Over 2,000 migrants from Uttar Pradesh, who had been accommodated in the government shelter home on Wednesday night, were informed about the two trains scheduled to leave for UP from Karmali on Thursday. However, as there was no arrangement to ferry them across to Karmali, many converged at the Margao railway station adding to the rush.
Many who had queued up were headed for various districts of Uttar Pradesh, but the only train departing from Margao was for Manipur. However, they were in no mood to listen to the cops manning the crowds and understandably so as they had been coming to the railway station for the past few days at day break, only to be driven away by the authorities by dusk.
As the Margao-Jiribam (Manipur) Shramik Special train chugged out of the railway station at around 7.30pm carrying 817 passengers, nearly 6,000 migrants had still remained crowded at the railway station. The Margao-Jiribam train carried passengers from Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura, official sources said. Four hundred more passengers were expected to board the train in Bhopal.