The railways have cancelled 27 trains since Saturday as hundreds of protesters continued to stage a sit-in on rail tracks at the site of the Friday’s accident demanding that missing persons be traced and adequate compensation be given to the families of the dead.
Friday’s tragedy left 61 dead and many more injured after a Jalandhar-Amritsar train ploughed through a crowd on a track watching Ravan’s effigy being burnt. The railways have said it was not responsible for the tragedy.
Apart from cancelling 27 trains, the railways also diverted many others to Tarn Taran and Beas to continue their onward journeys while others were short terminated at Jalandhar, railway officials said.
Police are hoping that the protest would peter out later Sunday.
“We hope that the normalcy will be restored in the area by Sunday evening as the number of protestors has come down since Saturday,” a senior police officer said according to PTI.
The Punjab Police has deployed its personnel to manage the crowd at the protest site. The Rapid Action Force is also present in the Joda Patak area.
About 500 protesters, mostly young men, have blocked the rail tracks at the accident site and have been raising slogans against the administration and the railways. Shops near the Joda Phatak area remained closed.
“Two labourers who were living in my area are still missing,” Kamal, who lives near Joda Phatak was quoted as saying by PTI.
Kamal raised apprehensions that the death toll could be higher than the figure given by the government.
The district administration has said 40 of the dead have been identified while the process of identifying the others is underway.
Another local, named Raju, said a man was still looking for the body of his father who died in the incident. “He had gone to collect a piece of cloth to cover the body of his father, but when he returned he could not find the body,” said Raju.
Another man was inconsolable. He could just find the slippers of his brother Sonu. He carried the slippers to the police station and pleaded to help him find his brother.
Family members of the victims said that Punjab cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and his wife Navjot Kaur, who was the chief guest at the Dusshera function on Friday evening, had not even bothered to meet them despite their loss.
“These people (political leaders) only come for functions or to beg for votes. No one has come to be with us in our hour of need and grief,” Pradeep Sharma, an area resident was quoted as saying by IANS.
First Published: Oct 21, 2018 12:40 IST
Source: HindustanTimes