Bhubaneswar: Not until 120 Puri-bound tourists landed at Biju Patnaik International Airport at 8.30 am Wednesday did they know that they had to kick their heels till dusk.
It was 1 pm when this correspondent met the stranded tourists, all between the age group of 60 and 85, who looked exhausted. Only after landing, they came to know about the dawn-to-dusk bandh and the reason behind it. They were sympathetic towards the deceased girl but at the same time expressed their displeasure over getting stranded with little facilities at the airport.
Ved Prakash Gupta, 65, said there were 50 women tourists in the group that came from Rohini area in Delhi. They were having a tough time with little scope of taking rest anywhere. They had problems even to attend to call of nature, he added.
Roshan Khatri of Vision India Tourism Private limited who was with the tourists to supervise their trip said he is coming to Puri via Bhubaneswar twice or thrice in a year, but had never experienced such a situation before.
When contacted, Suresh Chandra Hota, Biju Patnaik International Airport Director, said all possible facilities were extended to the stranded passengers.
Apart from these tourists, some passengers were also seen sitting here and there with bag and baggage. Some others managed to go to their destinations by arranging some means of transport.
While vehicular traffic came to a halt, some autos were seen coming to the stranded passengers’ rescue, be it airport, railway station or bus stand.
These autos had allegedly charged more than the actual fare. Even some youths had cashed in on the situation. They were seen offering pillion ride to single stranded passenger, charging double the regular auto fare.
Padma Lochan Samal, along with his wife and daughter, was seen waiting for an auto at Master Canteen. “We have to catch Thursday 5.30am train to Kharagpur where my daughter is to take part in a programme at IIT,” said Samal adding due to the urgency they, with good knowledge of all possible odds, had to come to Bhubaneswar.
Another passenger, Manas Kumar Sahoo, who came all the way from Bangalore to see a relative at a private hospital here, expressed his displeasure over the way the autos were fleecing the ill fated passengers. He felt the police administration should have stepped in and helped the passengers.
Pradeep Pattanayak, OP
