[Reader-list] train from Pakistan

[Taraprakash]

Train from Pakistan — sanitised
Nirupama Subramanian
Unprecedented security puts passengers on the Samjhauta Express in a fix.
TWO METAL detectors and a dozen strapping gun-toting troopers of the 
Pakistan Rangers block the way on Platform No. 1 at Lahore Railway Station 
at the point
where the rake for the 8 a.m. Lahore-Attari 402 Down, or the Pakistan-India 
Samjhauta Express, is stationed.
Leashed near the metal detectors are two huge Labradors. The sniffer dogs 
have already been through each of the 10 carriages of the train, and are now 
on
duty to smell out suspicious baggage as it passes through first the metal 
detectors, and then through a scanner. Along with police, the Rangers, 
Pakistan's
border security force, have combed "every compartment" of the train and have 
certified it as secure.
"In our South Asia, we always wake up after the incident, but we certainly 
don't want something like that to happen again," says a senior officer of 
the
Rangers, who requested not to be named.
Starting from the metal detectors, the Rangers have sealed the platform to 
all except ticket-holding passengers, railways officials, policemen. No 
exceptions
will be made, including for this correspondent.
"Sorry, please understand, we don't want to take any chances," the official 
says.
* * *
Ten days after the attack on the Samjhauta Express in India, Pakistan has 
implemented stringent measures for the security of the train, combing the 
train
three hours before its departure at 8 a.m., posting guards on the platform 
as well in the train, and aside from the electronic scanning of bags, 
carrying
out random checks on passengers. Considering the rush on the train and the 
amounts of baggage people carry with them, the new security procedures are a
challenge, both for security agencies, and for passengers.
The incident at Panipat has not in the slightest deterred people from 
travelling on the train. It is not a comfortable train, and as events last 
month showed,
nor is it the safest. The train takes almost 24 hours from Lahore to Delhi. 
The distance between Lahore and Attari is 27 km, but takes five hours, of 
which
the running time is only one hour. The rest goes into customs and 
immigration formalities at Wagah. The wait at Attari is even longer, and it 
can take
more than eight hours before the passengers complete the Indian border 
procedures and board the link train to Delhi. But at Rs.90 for the journey 
from
Lahore to Attari through Wagah, and between Rs.115 and Rs.225 for the onward 
journey to Delhi, it is certainly the cheapest.
* * *
Almost everybody taking the train shares the identical opinion when it comes 
to assessing their safety on the journey, post-Panipat.
"Life and death are in the hands of the one above. If we die, we die, if we 
live, we reach our destination," says Zahida, a Pakistani who is headed to 
meet
relatives in Lucknow. She planned long for this journey. "I am going after 
27 years. For a long time I never got the visa. Now I have it, nothing can 
stop
me."
Most people are plain relieved that the train continues uninterrupted even 
after the incident.
Wasim Shehzad from Multan is going for his niece's wedding in Jaipur. He's 
carrying a crockery set as a gift. "When I first heard about the attack, I 
thought
there goes my trip, they will cancel the train now, but thankfully, they did 
not," he says.
Noor Begum, who is returning home to Roorkee in India after visiting 
relatives in Gujarat town in Pakistan's Punjab province, says with fervour 
in her tone:
"May they never stop this train, it's the only hope for people like us who 
have family on both sides."
* * *
But the new regulations are not easy to come to terms with.
Inexplicably, tickets for the train have always been sold from only two 
hours before departure. No advance booking. The ticket counter is in a vast 
asbestos-roofed
shed that leads to Platform No.1, from a side of the Lahore Railway Station 
that is clearly not its most well looked after part. At 6 am, people are 
pouring
in through a narrow gate, pushing mountains of baggage on trolleys, carrying 
them on their heads or just dragging bags through the mud. Large groups of
men and women wait while a family member queues up for the ticket.
A new system is in place from today, and people are struggling to understand 
it. First, stand in line for a ticket, to be issued only against a passport;
then, stand in a second line for a reservation, which is also when the 
booking clerk manually writes down passport details in a big ledger. No more 
unreserved
tickets. And no more tickets for onward journeys. That is a joint decision 
by the Railways of Pakistan and India. So, here in Lahore, passengers can 
buy
tickets only up to Attari, unlike earlier when they could also buy tickets 
for the next leg of their journey, to Delhi, and to other destinations.
"This way, we can keep better track of who is boarding the train and from 
which point," said Station Master Mohammed Yousuf.
* * *
Ticketing done, passengers, helped by porters, and accompanied by gaggles of 
relatives and friends who have come to see them off, shove their bags 
towards
Platform No.1. But a new shock awaits them. They must weigh their bags. Each 
person is allowed 35 kg, and excess is charged. Able-bodied family members
take the weighty bags off trolleys and lug them to the scales one by one. 
Very few passengers are travelling within their baggage allowance. But it 
appears
that as is the first day of the new rules, leniency rules. Passengers plead, 
and the officials are waiving 5 or 10 kg excess.
* * *
Halfway down Platform No.1, the metal detectors are not a surprise to the 
passengers, but having to part with family members at this point, much 
before
the departure of the train, is a wrench. Also, as at airports, they have to 
leave behind their trolleys, and porters. Beyond the metal detectors, the 
platform
looks like no other in South Asia. No crowds of people, no vendors, no 
people peering or shaking hands through windows, no sightseers. Only those 
with
tickets and passports go through the metal detectors, dragging their huge 
bags behind them or carrying them on their heads towards the train and their
allotted seats.
* * *
Over 700 passengers are on the train as it leaves Lahore. But some like 
Taiyyab Hussain from Gurgaon in India could not get a seat. And his 30-day 
visa
will run out today. The Rangers are not listening to any argument. "No means 
no," says the trooper at the metal detector.
Hussain is distraught. He tried talking to senior officials, the 
stationmaster, the ticket checker. Nothing worked. "Earlier it was so much 
easier. You
just bought an unreserved ticket and travelled. Now they have created more 
problems all around. I don't know what I'm going to do for my visa," he 
says,
as the train pulls off, leaving behind a clean platform.
* * *
The Railway authorities have also barred passengers from boarding at Wagah, 
the train's next stop, a 40-minute journey from Lahore, nor can anybody get
off the train here. Those in the train will disembark for customs and 
immigrations procedures and will board the train again. But no new 
passengers are
to get on at this small station at the India-Pakistan border.
Despite the bar, entire families, who are in the same boat as Hussain, have 
hired taxis to drive them from Lahore through flowering mustard fields and 
bad
roads to Wagah, hoping that the rules will be less tight at a rural station. 
It does not even have a proper entrance at the moment. No such luck. The 
Rangers
have sealed off the platform at Wagah too.
"They will get used to the new system. It's for their own safety. We don't 
want a repetition of what happened in India," says a railways official at 
Wagah.
When the Samjhauta Express pulls out at 12.30 p.m. on its 15-minute run to 
Attari, officials have on their list 764 passengers — 531 Pakistanis, 232 
Indians,
and one `foreigner' — all identified and accounted for, but with the luggage 
still blocking the doors, passages, and all other available space in the 
carriages.