Hyderabad, December 31: After 10 years, Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Kutumba Rao was looking forward to celebrating New Year and Pongal with his parents and childhood friends at his native Anakapalli in Visakhapatnam district. But all his plans went awry as he found himself stranded at the Secunderabad railway station along with his family since Tuesday evening, thanks to the bandh called by the Joint Action Committee (JAC).
He flew down to Hyderabad from America in about 20 hours, but had to wait for 24 hours to buy tickets to reach Anakapalli.
Like Kutumba Rao, there were hundreds of passengers stranded at the railway station as several trains were cancelled in view of the bandh.
“We have been staying in the rest house at the Secunderabad railway station since Tuesday evening,” said Kutumba Rao as he began narrating his ordeal to Expresso. “We booked a cab through a travel agency a few days ago, but the operator withdrew the service at the last moment. We thought we would take a train, but even that was not possible as all the trains were cancelled.”
After arriving in the city, Kutumba Rao and his family went for shopping as they had to buy gifts for their relatives and friends. “We spent time reading newspapers and magazines in the railway station. Last night, we approached several private travel agencies for tickets but to no avail,” he lamented. To add to their woes, all bus services from Hyderabad to Coastal Andhra region were cancelled by the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC).
Describing it as a bitter experience of his life, Kutumba Rao said that on Wednesday they wanted to shift to a nearby hotel but even there they were greeted by closed doors.
The railway station was packed with stranded passengers, many of them Ayyappa devotees, whose travel plans went haywire. “We will have to re-schedule our plans,” was what most of them said after being stranded on the station for over 24 hours.
–Agencies