Five days after it met with a tragic accident near Balasore in Odisha, the 12841 Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express resumed services on Wednesday. The train left the Shalimar station from West Bengal’s Howrah district at 3.25 p.m. from platform number 2.
The general compartments of the train were crowded, filled mostly with migrant workers going to other States for work. “I am not at all scared. It will be good if there is increased surveillance,” Pintu, a migrant worker who is travelling to Visakhapatnam said. Another migrant worker who boarded the train said he is heading to Kerala for work but admitted feeling a little scared. “There is fear but we have little option but to take the train and report to work,” he said.
Ranjit Mandal, along with a few other villagers from Sandeshkhali in the State’s South 24 Parganas, has boarded the train in the hope of finding his 18-year-old son who is still missing after the accident on June 2. “The name of my son is Dipankar. He is 18 years old. We were in Odisha but could not find him. We are going again in the hope of finding him,” the father said.
