Bharat Bandh in Ferozepur Cost Railways Rs 1.9 Crore: Report

The cost of other damages, including destruction of Railway properties, is still being worked on.

Members of the Dalit community stop a train in Mathura on 2 April during the Bharat Bandh.

(Photo: PTI)

The refunds that the Railways in Punjab’s Ferozepur division had to pay travellers, due to the Dalit protests during the Bharat Bandh on Monday, 2 April, cost them Rs 1.98 crore.

As per a report in The Indian Express, Railways paid Rs 1.84 crore in refunds to travellers of passenger trains, while it paid Rs 14.45 lakh for mail express trains in the Ferozepur division, which covers half of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

Protesters squatted on railway tracks at a few places in Punjab and Haryana, crippling rail traffic.

The cost of other damages, including destruction of Railway properties in Ferozepur, is still being worked on and is likely to be in crores, a source told the newspaper.

An FIR with charges of damage to public property is set to be lodged against the mob, the report added.

The agitators also disrupted traffic on the Kapurthala-Ferozepur section by staging a 'dharna' on the rail track at the Khojewal and Kapurthala railway stations, PTI reported.

Track updates on the Bharat Bandh protests here.

During the Bharat Bandh, marches were taken out by Dalit activists in Jalandhar, Patiala, Sangrur, Hoshiarpur, Ropar, Bathinda, Ferozepur, Kapurthala, Phagwara and other places in Punjab, and at Panchkula, Ambala, Kaithal, Hisar, Karnal, Rohtak, Yamunanagar, Bhiwani, Sirsa, Faridabad and Gurgaon in Haryana as well as in Chandigarh.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) too had postponed Class 12 and Class 10 examinations at the request of the Punjab government.

(With inputs from PTI and Indian Express)