Footpaths turn waiting spots for thousands

They had tickets in their hands, but at that point of time, they were not sure of their travel time, because information was not available

Update: 2022-06-18 01:17 GMT
Even the bus services at the Secunderabad Railway Station were stopped and shifted to Wesley Church near Clock Tower (in picture). DC Image

HYDERABAD: Thousands of passengers who came to the Secunderabad Railway Station squatted on the pavements as the authorities closed the gates and prevented passengers from entering the station.  

They had tickets in their hands, but at that point of time, they were not sure of their travel time, because information was not available. Most of them, who could not afford to postpone the travel, halted on the pavements. They were hungry too as all the hotels near the railway station were shut down. Even the bus services at the Secunderabad Railway Station were stopped and shifted to Wesley Church near Clock Tower.

Families, youth, women, children, aged and physically disabled, all sat on footpaths from Alpha Hotel till Clock Tower in Secunderabad, not knowing what to do as their travel plans went awry following the violent protests on the station premises by angry youth who opposed the Centre’s news army recruitment move.   

People were also seen taking rest on the stretch across the railway station, spreading bed sheets and making the pavement a convenient place to wait till the trains were restored. Seven friends who had to go to Vijayawada and catch a train to Orissa said, “We are migrant labourers here. As our work finished, we thought of going back to our hometown and returning later. We don’t even have much money to travel again later. We will wait till the trains resume.”  At around 7 pm, station gates were opened and the passengers were allowed inside the station. This sight reminded one of the testing times of the first nationwide lockdown during Covid-19 where guest labourers thronged the railway station in large numbers.

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