I WAS devastated on reading the news on Saturday that the Indian railway authorities did not permit the Samjhota Express to cross into India from the Wagah border on Friday morning on the plea that there was unrest in Indian Punjab due to “farmers’ agitation” and they feared for the safety of the train.

Did they realise to what financial, physical and mental stress the passengers and their friends/relatives were subjected to?

This meant that the passegers were stranded at Lahore from Friday to Monday morning when the Samjhota Express was next scheduled to leave Lahore for Attari border station in India.

All the passengers were presumably from the lower income group and they had certainly not even imagined that they would have to bear this extra expenditure. How they would bear the expenses of three days’ board and lodging?

Their friends and relatives in far-off towns must have already left their hometowns for the Delhi railway station to receive them. What would happen to them ? Would they stay in Delhi for the next three days and bear the expenses of board and lodging? If so, how would they meet these extra expenses?

They might have not brought extra money with them to meet this extra and unforeseen expenditure. Or they were supposed to return to their hometowns and come again after three days. Some of the passengers might have been going to attend some specific functions immediately on their arrival in India — for exapmle, a wedding. The purpose of their visit was evidently thwarted.

Did the Indian railway authorities take into account these painful realities before being cowed down?

If somehow they felt apprehensions for the safety of the Samjhota Express, it was easy to break the train and attach its bogies to the various trains leaving Amritsar for Delhi.

One bogie in one train would have been too inconspicuous to be taken note of by the rioters.

Justice (r) Salahuddin Mirza
Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2015

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