Delayed suburban train services at peak hour on Monday morning proved to be the last straw for the long-suffering commuter class of the financial capital’s vast outback region. Something as apparently unremarkable and commonplace as a series of late trains set passengers on a trail of destruction and vandalism at Nallasopara railway station while an impromptu ‘rail roko’ disrupted Western Railway services between Virar and Vasai from 9 am to nearly 2 pm.

The melee began at Virar, a terminal station, where regular commuters had begun to gather in anticipation of the 8.54 am Churchgate-bound Fast local, which usually chugs in by 8.45 am. According to commuters, the train arrived only after 9 am. Just as people rushed in and took seats, an announcement said the train was headed to the yard.

Already frustrated by inadequate services at the far northern end of Western Railway’s suburban line, angry commuters then blocked the tracks of the 8.54 am Churchgate local and the 9.02 am Dadar local, refusing to budge. A few hundred protestors were on the tracks for hours, eyewitnesses said.

“Despite laying four tracks, trains ply only on two tracks. Our demand for more train services to Virar have fallen on deaf ears,” said one protestor.

Officials later confirmed that trains along the Virar-Bhayander stretch were stalled between 9 am and 2 pm. Fifteen services were diverted from Vasai, eight from Bhayander.

Sunita Khedkar who takes the 8.54 am local to her workplace in Bandra decided to return home after a four-hour wait for services to resume. “Delayed trains are a routine thing,” she said, shaking her head in anger.

As mob fury poured out, protestors vented other frustrations — the still-nascent urban areas of Vasai, Virar and Nallasopara suffer up to eight hours of load-shedding, up from the six-hour power outages earlier. At Nallasopara, even as a booking office was vandalised and a photographer with The Indian Express assaulted by protestors (See Box), the local municipal headquarters was also ransacked.

Nallasopara Municipal Council President Umesh Naik said a crowd of around 100-150 protestors ransacked the office at 11 am. “They damaged windowpanes and a civic official’s car,” he said.

A railway official said: “Yesterday, there was load-shedding in Virar for 12 hours — no light or water supply on the one day that people get an off.” Nallasopara and Virar require nearly 30 Megawatts of electricity, but get 23 to 24 Megawatts per day.

A fallen electric pole in a marshy area of Virar on Sunday could be repaired rather slowly, admitted V B Jagtap, Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Corporation Limited (MSEDCL) executive engineer for Virar. “But on Monday, train services were not delayed because of us,” he said.

Chief Public Relation Officer (WR ) Shyam Sunder Gupta said the 8.54 am local was delayed by 10 minutes due to a trespassing case and a Bhayander local had to be stopped for 10 minutes. Railway and police staff could do little to stop the protestors who blocked the tracks with cement slabs and rocks. Senior Police Inspector of Manikpur (Vasai) Pandharinath Mandhare said: “This is a leaderless mob. We are waiting for them to clear the tracks.” Only a few people trying to force commuters to leave train compartments were hauled away in the afternoon.

Eventually, rail services were restored around 2 pm.

Express photographer assaulted
Senior photographer with The Indian Expess Kevin D’Souza was attacked by angry commuters while he was taking photographs of them ransacking the booking office at Nallasopara station. “The commuters told me not to shoot pictures. When I continued doing my job, I was roughed up and my camera was snatched,” he said. D’Souza was punched and beaten and is recovering in hospital.