The special Rajdhani acted as a link for people stranded outside and here in Dhanbad to come and go home.

People of Jharkhand stranded in Delhi, who took the Delhi-Howrah Special Rajdhani (02302), arrived in Dhanbad on Thursday. Those stranded here left for Howrah in the same train. The train that departed on Wednesday around 4.44pm from Delhi reached Dhanbad around 8.30am and left for Howrah at 8.45am.

A total of 127 passengers arrived at Dhanbad and 100 left for Howrah in Bengal.

Shiva Tiwari, 21, a Jharia-based automobile engineer, who pursued BTech from Automatic Skills Development Council at Okhla in Delhi and was undergoing apprenticeship with a private institute in the national capital, returned to his hometown on Thursday.

A little boy carries a bottle of sanitiser that is almost bigger than his water bottle at the Dhanbad station on Thursday. The boy came by the special train that arrived from New Delhi. Picture by Gautam Dey

“I came home (Kujama in Jharia) last December and this year I was scheduled to return home after completion of my apprenticeship on March 31 but the lockdown prolonged by return for more than 45 days. I somehow managed to get tickets for this train,” he said.

“I left Gurgaon, where I was staying, at 11.30pm on Wednesday in app cab Ola. The cab was stopped at the Haryana border and I had to hire another Ola to reach New Delhi station at 1.30pm,” said Tiwari, adding that because of security reasons they were called at the station three hours prior to the departure of the train.

“After arrival at the Dhanbad station we were taken to PMCH and after a medical check up we were stamped and prescribed home quarantine,” said Tiwari.

Godda resident Himashu Shekhar, 31, said he went to Delhi on March 17 with his mother and son with a plan to tour but never knew that they will be caught in such a lockdown. “We somehow procured tickets for Dhanbad from where we will proceed to Godda in a van from the Dhanbad station,” he said.

Similar tales unfolded for those who were to leave for Howrah and were locked up in Dhanbad for more than 45 days. Explaining his toil, Ujjjwal Panja, 25, a chef at hotel Coal Capital in Dhanbad, said: “I last visited my home in Howrah in January this year and had come back to Dhanbad. I was staying in the hotel from the time the lockdown was imposed. Thanks to the special train, I will be able to reach home.”