As government limits local travel, railways issues only manual tickets; many with fake IDs try their luck only to see the fake confiscated
A man tries to persuade cops to let him enter CSMT on Friday. Pic/Ashish Raje
As the railways put additional curbs on travel by locals, long queues, jarring barricades and fake ID holders trying their luck were the highlights of Friday at city’s train stations. This is the first since February 1 that suburban services have been curtailed over COVID.
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Only essential and exceptional category workers are permitted to use the locals in Mumbai. Western Railway has shut 174 entry-exit points of the total 266 access routes, the Central Railway blocked 67 of its 223 entry-exit gates. A number of people carrying bogus IDs to travel to essential workers were caught and authorities seized the fake identity cards.
Though there were expectations of chaos due to the new restrictions, officials stepped in to streamline crowds through queues in the morning at suspected trouble areas like Nallasopara, Vasai and Dombivli stations. A video claiming heavy crowding at Nallasopara was widely shared on social media and was even run by a few local news channels, but the Western Railway called it unverified.
A number of commuter categories that had earlier been considered as essential workers have been excluded in the latest modified list released by the state government. This led to some confusion about who exactly were essential workers, prompting the railway staff at each station to decide on tickets using their own interpretation. The railways issued tickets only manually.
By the end of the day, over 35 fake and ineligible IDs had been seized at Central Railway stations. WR figures were not ready at the time of going to press.
67 - No. of entry-exit points shut by CR
174 - No. of entry-exit points shut by WR
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