Chitradurga: Probably, never in the history of the country has this ever happened before.
Failure of the Railways to compensate land-losers of a project has led the District Principal and Sessions Court to order seizure of the Harihar-Chitradurga-Bengaluru passenger train (no 56520).
According to official sources, the Railways had acquired land for the Chitradurga–Rayadurga line in 1986 by paying a nominal compensation to the land-losers. But in 1991, the land-losers approached court seeking more compensation. A compensation of of Rs. 1 crore is to be paid to 50 farmers for acquiring their land for a project.
However, since the long pending compensation was not paid, on Thursday, the train was seized at Chitradurga Railway Station as per court orders.
There was much drama when, as per the court’s order, authorities came to the station and made alternative arrangements for more than 100 passengers to reach their destination before seizing the train.
Davangere Railway Protection Force inspector Gouram Gober and Railway Additional Divisional Engineer Ramesh Mallapur rushed to the spot and appealed to the authorities to release the train in the interest of passengers. They also approached the court seeking some more time to pay the compensation.
However, the Court sternly told the Railways to first compensate the land losers within 45 days and then release the train.
