The Belpahar Citizen Forum launched a 12-hour rail roko agitation on Friday at the Belpahar station to build pressure on South Eastern Railway (SER) authorities to fulfill their 11-point demands. Earlier, the forum had a series of meetings with district Collector Bibhuti Bhushan Patnaik and SER Bilaspur division officials.
Since the talks remained inconclusive, the forum decided to observe the rail roko at Howrah-Mumbai main route on Friday in Belpahar station to stop all the incoming and outgoing trains passing via Belpahar. All major commercial establishments including shops also remained closed on Friday.
Thousands of men, women and children gathered at the station premises where Senior DCM Bikas Kasyap, ARM AR Sharma, RPF SP BP Pandit, Jharsuguda Collector BB Patnaik and SP AK Mohanty were present.
Their demands include stoppage of South Bihar Express at Belpahar station and extension of Jan Satabdi Express running from Durg to Raigarh.
Bilaspur,Chakradharpur and Sambalpur Division sources said that more than 11 Superfast Express, Express and Passenger trains halted for more than 2 to 3 hours in different railway stations due to the agitation.
Citizen Forum convenor Shyam Sundar Satpathy, Belpahar Municipality Chairman PR Sahoo, former Municipality Chairman KC Naik, Gunonidhi Pati, Md Arif, Pramod Senapati and Prachand Jaiswal led the agitation.
