KOLKATA: It was all in a day's ride for Mamata Banerjee. But for 26-year-old autorickshaw driver Dipak Haldar, it was a day never to be forgotten.
Caught in a traffic jam due to a Muharram procession, the railway minister decided to get out of her car and walk it on Monday evening, rather than be late for her flight to Delhi. Dipak, a regular on VIP Road, was at the right place at the right time and found himself giving a lift to a VVIP. The feel-good story has a twist in the tail, though.
Mamata's efforts notwithstanding, she still had to wait for about an hour at the airport — the flight was delayed because the pilot was stuck in the same bumper-to-bumper jam.
The real gainer of the evening was Dipak. Not only did he have a story to tell his grandchildren, he also ended up Rs 500 richer for a 1-km trip.
"I have never had so many people, including policemen, telling me to drive carefully," the auto driver said, when TOI tracked him down.
The flight was delayed as flight commander Priya Gill was among the thousands caught in the jam. The flight, with 165 passengers, took off 55 minutes behind schedule.
Source:TIMES OF INDIA
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Journey of hope ends in tragedy
Chandan Gupta, 23, had boarded the Amritsar Express at Howrah last Friday hoping to put his career on the right track. Little did he know that this journey of hope — he was to write a bank exam in Lucknow — would end in tragedy.
Chandan could only scream as his father Siuji Prasad Gupta, who had insisted on accompanying him to Lucknow, was shot in the chest by train robbers near Jasidih in Jharkhand.
On Sunday morning, the commerce post-graduate from St Xavier’s College was standing in a Howrah crematorium for his 52-year-old father’s last rites instead of being seated in an examination centre in Lucknow.
Chandan, who has been offered a railway job and Rs 2 lakh as “compensation”, recounts the train journey that claimed his father and explains how safety on tracks has become “a matter of luck”.
I had reluctantly allowed my father to accompany me to Lucknow for the written recruitment test conducted by the Oriental Bank of India. He knew I was capable of taking care of myself but his heart wouldn’t listen. “You focus on the exam, I will take care of the rest,” he would say.
The two of us boarded the S1 coach of Amritsar Express from platform number eight of Howrah station at 7.30pm on Friday. Our berths were 10 and 11.
We were to reach Lucknow around 3.30pm on Saturday and check into a hotel before finding my exam centre. Everything was going according to plan till then, and I was feeling good about it.
Around 10.30pm, we had paratha and sabzi for dinner, after which I climbed to the upper berth. My father was in the middle berth.
I had barely kept my head on the pillow when I heard loud voices a few feet away. I got up to check and saw some youths first abusing and then assaulting a passenger. I realised that a gang of robbers had raided the train.
My father was asleep, but I woke him up to alert him. He ordered me to lie down quietly, saying he would handle the situation if the gang tried to rob us. By then a couple of members of the gang — they all appeared to be in their twenties and were brandishing guns or knives — had reached our cubicle.
One of the men asked my father to hand over all cash and valuables. My father took out whatever money he had in his trouser pocket and gave it to the robber. He then asked for the cellphone and cash in my father’s shirt pocket.
My father hesitated for not more than a few seconds but the youth standing nearby with a pistol in his hand pointed the weapon at his chest and fired without any provocation.
I jumped down from the upper berth and held my father tight, screaming for help all the while. He tried to say something but he could barely breathe. As I held him, I looked at the palms of my hands...they were drenched in blood.
Not a single passenger came to help us. I lay my father down on the floor and ran barefoot from coach S1 to S9 looking for Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel but found none. By the time I returned, my father was motionless. I pulled the chain in desperation, and the train screeched to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Still no sign of GRP personnel. I lost hope.
After five minutes, the train started moving again. Around 25 minutes later, the train pulled into Jhajha station. I got off and scanned the station for someone in uniform but saw none.
I was told that the GRP station was on the other side of the platform and could be reached quickly only if I ran across the tracks. I did as advised, only to find a lone GRP sentry on duty.
When I told him what had happened, the sentry asked me to bring my father to the platform. I ran back to the train and requested our co-passengers to help me lift my father but nobody did. Finally, one passenger came forward and helped carry my father to the platform.
Someone arranged for a vehicle to take him to the ticket office, where we waited for more than an hour before a doctor arrived.
He checked in vain for my father’s pulse. It was too late.
Source : The Telegraph
Chandan could only scream as his father Siuji Prasad Gupta, who had insisted on accompanying him to Lucknow, was shot in the chest by train robbers near Jasidih in Jharkhand.
On Sunday morning, the commerce post-graduate from St Xavier’s College was standing in a Howrah crematorium for his 52-year-old father’s last rites instead of being seated in an examination centre in Lucknow.
Chandan, who has been offered a railway job and Rs 2 lakh as “compensation”, recounts the train journey that claimed his father and explains how safety on tracks has become “a matter of luck”.
I had reluctantly allowed my father to accompany me to Lucknow for the written recruitment test conducted by the Oriental Bank of India. He knew I was capable of taking care of myself but his heart wouldn’t listen. “You focus on the exam, I will take care of the rest,” he would say.
The two of us boarded the S1 coach of Amritsar Express from platform number eight of Howrah station at 7.30pm on Friday. Our berths were 10 and 11.
We were to reach Lucknow around 3.30pm on Saturday and check into a hotel before finding my exam centre. Everything was going according to plan till then, and I was feeling good about it.
Around 10.30pm, we had paratha and sabzi for dinner, after which I climbed to the upper berth. My father was in the middle berth.
I had barely kept my head on the pillow when I heard loud voices a few feet away. I got up to check and saw some youths first abusing and then assaulting a passenger. I realised that a gang of robbers had raided the train.
My father was asleep, but I woke him up to alert him. He ordered me to lie down quietly, saying he would handle the situation if the gang tried to rob us. By then a couple of members of the gang — they all appeared to be in their twenties and were brandishing guns or knives — had reached our cubicle.
One of the men asked my father to hand over all cash and valuables. My father took out whatever money he had in his trouser pocket and gave it to the robber. He then asked for the cellphone and cash in my father’s shirt pocket.
My father hesitated for not more than a few seconds but the youth standing nearby with a pistol in his hand pointed the weapon at his chest and fired without any provocation.
I jumped down from the upper berth and held my father tight, screaming for help all the while. He tried to say something but he could barely breathe. As I held him, I looked at the palms of my hands...they were drenched in blood.
Not a single passenger came to help us. I lay my father down on the floor and ran barefoot from coach S1 to S9 looking for Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel but found none. By the time I returned, my father was motionless. I pulled the chain in desperation, and the train screeched to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Still no sign of GRP personnel. I lost hope.
After five minutes, the train started moving again. Around 25 minutes later, the train pulled into Jhajha station. I got off and scanned the station for someone in uniform but saw none.
I was told that the GRP station was on the other side of the platform and could be reached quickly only if I ran across the tracks. I did as advised, only to find a lone GRP sentry on duty.
When I told him what had happened, the sentry asked me to bring my father to the platform. I ran back to the train and requested our co-passengers to help me lift my father but nobody did. Finally, one passenger came forward and helped carry my father to the platform.
Someone arranged for a vehicle to take him to the ticket office, where we waited for more than an hour before a doctor arrived.
He checked in vain for my father’s pulse. It was too late.
Source : The Telegraph
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