NSUI, the Congress' student wing started a mass Twitter campaign with #KeralaStudentsNeedShramikTrain demanding the Kerala government to arrange for a special shramik train for the Keralite students in Delhi. While the students claimed that they were promised a special train by the authorities at the Kerala House, the official state mission of Government of Kerala at New Delhi, they were told a day before the scheduled departure that the train was cancelled.
"The Kerala House in Delhi has even made a list of around 1,500 students who wanted to go to their homes in Kerala. But when they got to know that the trains are cancelled, they boarded the regular passenger trains," says Vishnu Prasad, a JNUSU councillor and a member of the NSUI. "The authorities now tell us that they can't arrange for another train since a lot of these students boarded the trains yesterday," he says.
On the other hand, the students who boarded the passenger train on Wednesday say that no social distancing norms have been followed inside the compartments. Some of them have shared photos and videos of the compartments, where passengers can be seen sitting cramped. In a video, a student can be heard saying, "We had no option apart from boarding this train since the Kerala Government did not arrange a special train for us. The tickets were expensive than the usual fare. Despite that, the condition inside the compartments is pathetic."
She then goes on to show three passengers sitting together on a seat. "We got inside the train by merely getting our temperature checked. Our lives are at risk," she says. "This shows the incapability of the government," she adds. Another student who boarded the train from Delhi also shared a similar account. "Around 1,200 passengers are travelling on this train right now. This is just like any other train and no social distancing norms are followed. Apart from that, it stopped at places like Gujarat and Maharashtra from where people got in and out," he says. "We hope that the government and the railways take care of these issues, maintain social distancing in the trains that will ply in the future," he adds.
