Airports Authority of India (AAI) staff have come forward to provide food for the people stranded at Guwahati railway station for five days during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

AAI employees posted here were seen distributing packaged drinking water and food to the stranded passengers and on-duty security personnel.

Sanjeev Jindal, the regional director of the AAI, Northeast, said, “We have seen reports about several people being stranded at the railway stations and so we decided to provide them with lunch and dinner. We will provide meals for the stranded passengers at the railway station for five straight days in association with stakeholders concerned. Apart from airports we are extending help to other passengers who are stranded owing to unrest in the state.”

He added that the meals will be sufficient for 1,000 people daily. He said they were not only providing meals to the stranded passengers but also to the support staff of the railway station who had worked day and night during the unrest.

A railway official said at least 40 trains have been short terminated and diverted after a railway station at Bhaluka Road (Bengal) under NF Railway was torched and damages caused to railway tracks because of the blockades in Assam.

The damages caused to the stations are being assessed and normalisation of train services will take some time, he said.

More than 600 people are still stranded at Guwahati railway station.

Most of these passengers on Sunday were seen waiting for their trains to Upper Assam.

Adarsh Singh, a student of Gauhati University, said he was supposed to travel to Jorhat by train as there are no buses at their disposal. He had hoped that he would be able to get on a train but there weren’t any.

He said he was out of money and his debit card was not functioning at any ATM either. He added that he was desperate to go home so that he could at least be with his family in this time of crisis.