Mumbai: Life on new metro line starts with a lie

A free ride on the newly inaugurated Metro 2A and 7 turned out to be a nightmare for some after they were left stranded at Aarey and Dahanukarwadi stations. While waiting to board the last train from these stations, they were told that the train was cancelled. The announcement led to commuters protesting at Aarey station, prompting staffers to raise a false alarm.

The announcement about train cancellation led to chaos at Aarey with commuters pressuring the staff to run the last train so that they could reach their destinations. Fearing protests, the metro staff raised a false alarm stating that there was a fire at the station and asked commuters to leave. As the panicked crowd hurried towards the gate and the exit got blocked, the officials told the commuters about the false alarm and asked them to maintain a queue while exiting the station. Meanwhile, at Dahanukarwadi metro station, people were forced to leave the station immediately.

False alarm

A father and son duo from Borivli West - Krishnaray Kedar, 62, and Pratik Kedar, 27 - took the metro from Pahadi Eksar station at Shimpoli around 9 pm, but when they reached Aarey station, they were told that the last train back had been cancelled. The Kedars told mid-day that after the announcement around 80-100 people refused to leave, following which Metro staff raised false alarms of a fire.

Krishnaray Kedar, a commuter

Pratik told mid-day, "We were given a free ticket at Eksar metro station and were told we would get a free ticket from Aarey metro station to return. The entire journey was superb though." He added, "There were so many senior citizens, women and kids and even some people in wheelchairs at the station. They were unwilling to leave the station. When they announced about the fire, I took my father out of the station and took an auto home. It cost me Rs 200." He added, "A fire announcement like the one they made leads to panic and could easily turn into something worse."

Stranded

A Dahisar resident Madhvi Kakkad, who had taken around 17 people including 12 children from his society for the free ride, said after reaching Dahanukarwadi they learnt that the last train got cancelled, which meant they had to spend R700 to return home via auto. Kakkad told mid-day, "We enjoyed the entire journey but it turned into a nightmare later. We had to take 5-6 autos to get home and spent around R700 rupees. This free ride turned out to be costly for us."

Glitches on Sunday too

According to some commuters who took the Metro line on Sunday, some technical issue marred the journey, but it was later fixed by the authorities. A commuter, Nikhil V Ranade, tweeted, "Yes, I was there in the train and some signalling issues had cropped up. The wait was almost 15 mins. This was around 1.00 today afternoon."

Madhvi Kakkad and other members from her housing society who got stuck at Dahanukarwadi station with 12 children

The train that left Aarey station at 4.59 pm also had a technical glitch as one of the doors in front of the platform screen door did not open when the train arrived at the platform. The train reached Dahanukarwadi station by 5.50 pm, a good 50 minutes later.

The people taking the train also had to wait in long queues at the station to buy tickets as the ticket vending machine did not have enough change to give customers. mid-day, too, rode on the Metro on Sunday and saw that the train door did not open in front of the platform screen door.

Passenger to blame: Metro

Metro officials said, "The fire alarm point, which is called the manual call point, was inadvertently pressed by a passenger on the platform. This was checked by the on-duty station controller and immediately an announcement was made telling passengers that it was a false alarm. Nevertheless, the inconvenience is regretted.

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Delay in a Metro between Aarey and Dahanukarwadi on Sunday

Inputs from Ranjeet Jadhav