Trapped in a coach with bedbugs

Bedbugs made travel a nightmare for passengers in the two-tier air-conditioned coach of train no. 16346 Netravati Express from here to Kurla on Sunday.The 46 passengers, many of them senior citizens, have rashes and swellings in their skin as the bugs bit them through the journey. Railway officials allegedly showed apathy in meeting their demand to replace the coach, forcing them to travel all the way to the destination suffering the bites.Kartik Shah, a music composer, and his wife, Nirali Shah, a singer, who boarded the train from Kayamkulam, said there were thousands of small and big “khatmal” (bugs) in the coach, which was unhygienic. As the request to the travelling ticket examiner to take action went unheeded, the commuters pulled the chain near the Mangalore railway station on Sunday night.“We asked the ticket examiner to call up the Station Superintendent, Mangalore, to replace the coach. When we reached Mangalore and demanded the same, the Station Superintendent and others said they were helpless,” Mr. Shah, who hails from Versova, told The Hindu over the phone. The offer given to us was to allow spraying of disinfectants or to wait eight hours to get the coach replaced.A section of the passengers turned their ire against fellow passengers as they were not ready to wait any further in Mangalore and wanted to reach Mumbai on Monday evening.“We had no other option but to get back in the same coach. There were two six-month-old babies and foreign tourists in the coach. It was a horrible night with bedbugs appearing from blankets and curtains,” he said.Ms. Shah said the journey would not fade easily from mind. “It was a nightmare with bedbugs everywhere and no place to go. There are handwritten complaints of passengers who had travelled in the coach last November saying that there were many rats and advising not to travel in the coach,” she said. The ticket examiner informed them that railway officials in Thiruvananthapuram knew about bedbugs in the coach.V.K. Sukumaran, 64, a retired railway employee, who was one of the passengers, said he was bitten all night by the bedbugs and had rashes now. P.G. Shankaram, Professor in SNDT University, Mumbai, is worried as the bugs have gone inside his luggage and belongings.“We are worried that all these will come into our house now and make life miserable,” he said.When the train reached Kurla on Monday, the railway officials were on the platform to inspect the coach. Mr. Shah said that after seeing the bedbugs, the officials said it was for Southern Railway to act as the coach belonged to it.It is to be seen whether the coach has been replaced or it is part of the rake of the train that makes its return journey.