Anxiety was writ large on the faces of the relatives waiting at Tatanagar station as the Bhubaneswar-bound special train from New Delhi chugged into platform 2 nearly an hour behind the scheduled time of arrival at 11.30am on Friday.
“My elderly parents are coming back from a red zone (Varanasi) and there is no clear-cut communication from the district administration on whether they will be kept in home or institutional quarantine,” said Anshuman Asthana, 38, an employee of Tata Cummins and a resident of Ghorabandha near Telco.
“We have not even been told if their nasal and throat swabs would be taken at the station or at the quarantine centre. I will be seeing my parents after a long time. They had gone to Varanasi to attend the last rites of a relative in March and had got stuck after the lockdown,” he said.
Anshuman’s father Brij Bilash admitted that they were a bit tense while boarding the train.
“We did not face any problem in Varanasi because we were staying at a relative’s house. But we were a bit nervous during the trip as there were all kinds of talk about being put in quarantine centre or isolation after screening. However, things passed off nicely and we are happy to be able to go home,” Brij Bilash, 68, said.
Several persons at the station admitted that their elderly parents were under mental pressure after being stuck in Delhi during the lockdown.
“My 59-year-old father had gone on a business trip to Delhi on March 22, the day when Janata Curfew was imposed, and was stuck there. He was extremely depressed. As soon as the railways announced resumption of passenger services, I booked a ticket for my father on the first train from Delhi,” said Zeeshan Ali Ahmed, a resident of Kitadih and a businessman.
Parents also looked worried about their children returning from the red zone in Delhi.
“My daughter had gone for her internship at a nationalised bank in Delhi after completing her MBA from Calcutta in January this year. It was a six-month internship, but the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown have forced us to call back our daughter. We were worried about her and would call her on the phone several times a day,” said Sachin Mahato, a resident of Krishnapur under RIT police station in Seraikela-Kharsawan district.
Jamshedpur circle officer Anurag Tiwary informed that a total of 89 passengers got down from the special train at Tatanagar station.
“Out of them, 47 were from Jamshedpur while one was from Khunti. The rest were from West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan. We had arranged buses for those headed to West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharswan. The lone passenger of Khunti went by a private car arranged by his relatives. The passengers of Jamshedpur had to arrange for their own conveyance,” Tiwary said.
All passengers underwent thermal screening and proper sanitation at Tatanagar and had to fill up their travel history and contact details before leaving the station premises.
“We have informed West Singhbhum, Seraikela-Kharsawan and Khunti district administrations about the passengers. Barring six passengers of Jamshedpur who opted for institutional quarantine, the rest have been asked to remain in home quarantine. All the passengers were asymptomatic,” Tiwary said.
He said samples of the six passengers who opted for institutional quarantine would be taken on Friday and the results would arrive within 48 hours.
“If the reports are negative, they will be allowed to go home. We will collect the samples of those in home quarantine in a phased manner,” Tiwary added.
