The Bharat Jakat Majhi Pargana Mahal on Tuesday morning withdrew the railway blockade, which had led to cancellation of trains and left thousands of passengers stranded on Monday, after talks with West Midnapore district officials.
Simultaneously, blockades at several places on NH6 were also withdrawn around 3am.
The tribal organisation had resorted to the train and road blockade demanding recognition of Santhali language at university level and appointment of Santhali language teachers in schools and colleges. From 6am onwards on Monday, members of the outfit — many armed with traditional weapons like bows and arrows and axes — had started blocking NH6 and railway tracks.
South Bengal districts like West Midnapore, East Midnapore, and Jhargram were severely hit by the blockade. In Purulia, Bankura and Birbhum, the blockade was withdrawn after some time.
Around 2am on Tuesday, the agitators were visited by Kharagpur subdivisional officer Sandip Sarkar and additional superintendent of police Y. Raghuvanshi, on the railway tracks at Khemashuli and assured the agitators of state-level talks regarding their demands.
West Midnapore district magistrate P. Mohangandhi said: “We were keeping an eye on the developments through Monday and requested them to withdraw the blockade. Our SDO of Kharagpur and additional SP went to meet them early this morning. The officers assured the agitators that their demands would be sent to the state government. Then, they agreed to withdraw their agitation.”
Even though the blockade was withdrawn, several express, passenger and local trains were cancelled and diverted on Tuesday.
“Several Bengal-bound trains were held up at subsequent stations and reached their destinations way behind schedule, forcing us to change the schedule. The situation should improve from Wednesday,” said Sanjoy Ghosh, the spokesperson for South Eastern Railway.
The Howrah-Secunderabad Falaknama Express, Howrah-Yeshwantpur Duronto Express and Howrah-Puri Dhauli Express were among the trains cancelled. The Howrah- Barbil and Howrah-Bhubaneswar Jan Shatabdi Expresses will be diverted via Kharagpur.
The departure of Howrah-Yeshwantpur Humsafar Express, scheduled to leave Howrah at 12.40pm, was postponed to 8.55pm. The Shalimar-Chennai Central Express, slated to leave at 12.10pm, was rescheduled at 6.30pm.
Since Monday, 48 express trains were cancelled in total because of the blockade. Forty-five passenger trains and 46 local trains were cancelled. Twenty-five express trains, 11 passengers trains and eight local trains were short-terminated and 22 express trains were diverted.
A leader of the Bharat Jakat Majhi Pargana Mahal, Rabin Tudu, said: “Our demands relate to the education department and we wanted to speak to officials of the education department. But this did not happen. We withdrew the blockade after being assured by district officials that they would convey our demands to the education department.”
However, Tudu warned that if the demands were not fulfilled within a reasonable time, they would again resort to agitation.
“If we find that our demands are being ignored, we will again resort to blockades for indefinite period after the Durga puja,” Tudu added.
Srikanta Mahato, a small trader and resident of Khatra in Bankura, had visited Calcutta early on Monday morning. But he could not return home on Monday.
“I took a local train to Panskura (in East Midnapore) and was caught in the blockade. I spent the night at the station. I took a local train to Bankura. We faced tremendous harassment because of the blockade. If the state government took the initiative of holding talks with the agitators earlier thousands of passengers would have been saved from the harassment,” said Mahato.
Additional reporting by Debraj Mitra
Passengers left stranded at Howrah station. Sanat Kumar Sinha
