New Delhi: Hundreds of migrant workers stuck without wages and food in Mumbai would have felt relief as they finally managed to board a special Shramik train to return to their rural homes in Uttar Pradesh.
But when they woke up in the train the next morning ready to go home and put their ordeal behind them, they found themselves nearly 750 km away in Odisha, far from their intended destinations in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur.
The special train, which started from the Vasai station in Maharashtra on Thursday, took a completely different route overnight to reach Rourkela in Odisha.
Angry and confused, when the migrant workers asked why this had happened, they said they were informed by railway officials present there that the train’s driver had lost his way because of some confusion in communication.
But the Railways has denied the claims and have stated that the train was routed to Rourkela as a change of destination by design.
“We have decided to run a few of the Shramik trains on diverted routes. Some trains were diverted for Bihar via Rourkela to clear congestion,” said the officials to media outlets.
According to reports, the migrant workers on board the train from Maharashtra were not informed of the sudden change in route and they are now stranded in Odisha as no one has been informed when the train will resume its journey back to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
