Barely three days after the rail roko at Badlapur station, a group of commuters threatened to hold another agitation at the same station, sending senior Central Railway (CR) officials into panic mode. In a knee-jerk reaction, around 60 police personnel were rushed to the station only to realise that just four people had turned up to talk to the stationmaster about their grievances.
CR officials had been walking on eggshells for the past four days after failure to rein in the rail roko caused CR divisional manager, Amitabh Ojha, to be transferred to Andhra Pradesh. The transfer order came directly from Union railway minister, Suresh Prabhu, who told officials to make an example of Mr Ojha. “When we got the call about a group threatening rail roko, we all ran there at around 10 am. The city police, government railway police and railway police force personnel turned up at the station only to realise that this was a small group who had not realised the gravity of the situation till they saw around 60 personnel standing in uniforms.” said a railway official on condition of anonymity.
Realising the error of their ways, the group withdrew the threat of rail roko but insisted that trains start from Badlapur. “It was a mess; these people got scared when they saw us and withdrew the threat but after Mr Ojha’s transfer, no one wanted to take the risk. Also, no one knew when the rail roko happened on August 12 that it would last for more than five hours or that such severe action would be taken by the railway minister,” said the official.
CR’s new general manager, Akhil Agarwal, confirmed the incident over a text message that said, “Yes, the incident occurred and the group finally met divisional officials and gave representations.” He told mediapersons on Tuesday afternoon, “We are working on upgrading our assets and will be training our staff to solve issues as fast as possible and get the train running”.
