June 25, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1427

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HYDERABAD, June 24: Angry Indian and Pakistani passengers smashed windowpanes of two bogies of the Thar express at midnight on Saturday.

The incident took place at the Hyderabad railway station after passengers, travelling from Karachi, locked bogies and refused to open them.

The train which arrived late at around 3:05am against its scheduled arrival of 1:45am left for Mirpurkhas at 3:25am with hundreds of passengers on board.

The passengers had to wait for around 85 minutes for the train to arrive here at platform no-1 and Hyderabad railway station superintendent Akhtar Kirmani was unaware of the reasons for arrival of the train.

As the train arrived, dozens of people clung to the bogies’ doors to get them opened and felicitate their guests inside the train.

However, the passengers who were travelling from Karachi kept the doors locked from inside because all the bogies were already overcrowded with heavy luggage, lying on the floor and besides the doors.

The travellers who have to board the train from Hyderabad beat the doors.

In some of the bogies doors were opened but passengers of bogies eight and nine refused to open the doors.

As a result, people waiting here smashed the panes of the bogies’ doors.

One of the angry persons boarded the train from other bogie to find its way into bogie no 8 and 9.

He introduced himself as an intelligence officer and then he was allowed to open the doors.

None of the railway officers and railway police tried to intervene in the whole situation sitting on platform as silent spectators.

When this correspondent asked night duty assistant station master as to why he was not calling railway police and getting doors opened, he expressed his inability to offer any help to passengers.

Hot words were exchanged and scuffles also took place between travellers over occupation of the seats.

There were passengers, who were travelling on simple tickets and occupying seats that were got reserved by passengers from Hyderabad.

There were people who were accompanying their guests upto the Zero Point.

The passengers who broke the panes of the two bogies’ doors told Dawn that had not they tried themselves to facilitate their relatives the passengers would not have opened the doors because railway officials were not willing to intervene in such situation.

“If you do not try on your own the train would leave and we would just keep imploring before passengers sitting inside to open doors”, said a Pakistani host of an Indian national.

“Why railway officials are allowing passengers to board the train when they did not have reserved seats in the Thar Express.

It is leading to scuffles and law and order situation and railway police and officials are doing nothing”, said one Mohammad Zaki, who was there to see off his cousin.

A railway official, who refused to disclose his name, said that he was from Mirpurkhas railway station.

He told Dawn that in fact all bogies were overcrowded and no action could be taken because all the passengers are foreigners.

He said that only 444 passengers had to travel in the train but number of passenger was much higher.

He said that most of the passengers did not have their seats confirmed and they boarded the train after buying tickets.

Such scenes had earlier been witnessed in Mirpurkhas as well two weeks back and railway officials, present at the Hyderabad railway station, apprehended such scene on Saturday in Mirpurkhas again because the train was heavily overcrowded.

Even women, who boarded the Thar Express from Karachi, were occupying reserved seats and berths with their luggage despite the fact the same were reserved from Hyderabad.

According to Hyderabad railway station superintendent Akhtar Kirmani only one bogie was allotted to Hyderabad which has a capacity of around 88 passengers and no passenger without seat’s reservation is allowed to board the train.

Contrary to his claim, railway officials were found issuing tickets to people for the Zero Pont without obtaining passports with no assurance of seats.

They told the passengers that seats would not be made available to them and it was upto them to find space for themselves.