A train that traverses the longest route of 4,386 km across India became the cause of a major COVID scare in Assam on Sunday morning as scores of passengers stampeded out of a station evading the mandatory COVID-19 test. The incident took place at the Jagi Road station, around 60 kilometres from Guwahati. A video of the event, now doing the rounds on social media, shows the passengers rushing en-masse out of the railway facility even as the police and railway officials look on.
The incident seemed like a replay of a similar one that was reported in Bihar last month. Dozens of people, some with young children, had back then rushed out of a railway station in Buxar fearing Covid testing. As we battle the deadly virus, Assam has made Covid-19 testing mandatory on arrival for all train passengers to keep citizens safe but All boundaries of recklessness were crossed when around 400 passengers from the Kanyakumari-Dibrugarh Vivek Express rushed out of the Jagiroad railway station in central Assam’s Morigaon district soon after the train arrived at around 10.30 a.m.
“We have sought the passenger list from the railways. We are tracing the people and by tomorrow (Monday) we should be able to locate them and get them tested,” the district’s Superintendent of Police, Aparna N. told. She added the station had a testing counter and adequate Government Railway Police personnel but the “crowd in the special train was much more than expected” and people managed to leave without getting tested.
