Updated: November 21, 2020 9:41:12 am
KMSC members sitting on the train tracks in the Jandiala Guru area of the Amritsar district. (Express photo)
Indian railways insisted on Friday that services through Punjab would resume only after the state government provides a safety guarantee to all trains.
The unprecedented stop of all train services in Punjab completed its 56th day on Friday. A total of 2,352 passenger trains have been canceled or diverted since farmers began a protest in September against the Center’s new farm laws.
“Law and order is the subject of the state government. It is up to them how they want to treat the protesters. We have told the state government time and again that the tracks must be turned over to us to safely operate all types of trains. That’s the booth, ”Arun Kumar, director general of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), who is in contact with his counterparts in the Punjab police, told The Indian Express.
For the Railways, as long as the protesters were seated in the vicinity of the tracks or in the station facilities, there was no guarantee that they would not move onto the tracks when a train approached. “Many trains that transport our staff for maintenance and other tasks look like passenger trains. We need to be confident that the protesters will not harm them thinking they are passenger trains, ”said Kumar.
On November 6, the Chairman of the Railway Board, VK Yadav, said that it was not possible to run only freight trains according to the protesters’ wishes.
“Nowhere in the country can any state government or any other agency dictate conditions to the Railways. It is our network and we decide whether to operate freight trains or passenger trains, ”Yadav had said.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
.
