Mumbai: Thousands of commuters protested the suburban Western Railway (WR) for treating its commuters like "animals" on a day that is marked as International Human Rights Day.
The protest trip started from Dahanu Road in the 9.35am Virar-bound train and continued in the 11.27am local train from Virar to Churchgate where a sit-in was held in front of the Western Railway general manager's office.
Volunteers of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) who led the protest distributed badges to supporters.
Shailendra Kamble, Maharashtra State Secretary of DYFI, said, "We have learned from our experience that railway authorities are least interested in providing decent travelling conditions in suburban trains. Millions of rupees have been taken for raising funds for Mumbai Urban Transport Project [MUTP] from Mumbai commuters in the form of surcharges every year for nearly a decade."
Yet, promises for a substantial increase in trains continue to remain unfulfilled, he adds.
Several demands
Several demands have been put forth to the authorities — a Virar local every three minutes; one Dahanu local every 30 minutes; increased services in the Borivili-Churchgate sector, adequate number of bridges for pedestrians, ticket counters, toilet facilities and drinking water at all stations, efficient mechanism at every station for attending to accident victims and taking them to hospital without wasting time, construction of Mumbai Central-Borivili line.
A sustained protest movement led to the completion of the Borivili-Virar track quadrupling of the services, Kamble said. "The time for another wave of protest actions have come."
