The Hindu
Karwar, Dec 26: Protesting against the alleged anti-Karwar attitude of the politicians of Mangalore, Kerala and also of the Railways, the Konkan Railway Users Action Committee (KRUAC) of Karwar staged a rail roko at the Karwar Railway Station on Friday. The protesters stopped the Rajdhani Express proceeding to Hazrat Nizamuddin from Thiruvananthapuram.
The immediate provocation for the protest was the demand by the politicians of Dakshina Kannada and Kerala to extend the new Mumbai–Karwar superfast train till Mangalore. The train traverses the 900-km distance between Karwar and Mumbai in nine hours, and businessmen and patients of Karwar and surrounding taluks benefit from the service, said the members of the committee.
The agitators belonging to different organisations, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, the Janashakti Vedike, the Karwar Merchants Union and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat, protested under the banner of the KRUAC.
They said that they were protesting cutting across party lines because the people of Karwar are always treated as second class citizens by some politicians. They alleged that a new railway station which was sanctioned and proposed to be built at Mudageri village near Karwar was shifted to Loliyem in Goa and the Railway Regional Manager’s Office (RRMO) of Karwar is also being bifurcated between neighbouring Goa and Udupi and being shifted out of Karwar.
The agitators warned of dire consequences if the Railways went ahead with the plan of shifting the RRMO and extending the superfast train up to Mangalore. The protesters, who had gathered in a large numbers, blocked the Rajdhani Express soon after its arrival at the Karwar Railway Station and shouted slogans by climbing over it. They raised slogans against the forces that are out to deprive the facility provided in the last budget. The protesters submitted a memorandum to the Minister through the Station Master and urged him to continue the arrangement of Mumbai–Karwar superfast express as it existed.