It was the second consecutive day of misery for passengers on the Central Railway (CR), as cracks developed on the tracks near Kurla — throwing the suburban timetable out of gear and resulting in cancellations and inordinate delays during the morning peak hours.
According to CR officials, after the fissure was spotted at around 8.38 am between Kurla and Sion on the Up fast track, the nearest signals turned red to stop the trains from plying on the route.
As a result, local trains slowed down and in all, 18 suburban services were cancelled. “Up fast suburban services were diverted between Vikhroli-Matunga on Up slow line during the affected period. However, Harbour Line services were running as per schedule,” stated a CR release. The CR imposed speed restrictions for the trains due to safety reasons.
“It took me one hour 20 minutes to reach my work place at Curry Road. The usual journey time is around 40 minutes. The train kept halting every five minutes and it was running very slowly till Sion,” said Preeti Wadhwa, a commuter. The snag was rectified at around 10.04 am, and it was during the afternoon that services started plying normally. Such cracks surface due to the climatic conditions.
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Don’t agitate, discuss issues instead: Thakre
age correspondent
Mumbai, Aug. 20
Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Manikrao Thakre on Monday responded to the Opposition’s allegations about the Azad Maidan riots, and said that political leaders can hold meetings in which they can express their feelings.
He, however, claimed that if the Opposition parties resort to agitation and demand resignations of the police commissioner and home minister, then it is merely a political gambit and it is wrong.
Responding to queries on the Azad Maidan riots on August 11, Mr Thakre had said that the MNS and Shiv Sena are indulging in “politics of hate” over the issue.
Moreover, rejecting the demand for home minister R.R. Patil’s resignation as sought by the MNS, Mr Thakre said the Opposition should come up with “constructive” suggestions to prevent recurrence of such incidents.
While the police served 149 CrPC notice to the MNS, the party’s group leader MLA Bala Nandgaonkar confirmed that they would go ahead with the morcha on Tuesday.
“The notice prohibits us from making any inflammatory speeches. But there would be morcha, come what may. We ask them not to even try stop us from taking out morcha,” he said.