KHAIRPUR, May 27: Hundreds of passengers, particularly women, children and the old, who have to wait for the usually late trains for hours on end, have to go through untold agony as the British-era railway station has been without toilets, running water facility and proper seating arrangement for last 30 years.

Abdul Qayyum Shaikh, general secretary of Khairpur District Bar Association, said that there were only a few benches on both the platforms of the station, which, too, were in a bad shape.

There were just a few bulbs at the station, which gave off poor light, leading to incidents of passengers slipping down from the train’s steps and suffering injuries, he said.

He said that the cemented floors at the platforms had developed cracks and potholes over the years, which were a cause of great irritation for the passengers, particularly the old, children and the patients.

Mir Munawwar Talpur and Syed Shakir Shah, civil society activists, said that a waiting hall for passengers had been constructed outside the station where wires for electricity had been fitted but no fans had been installed yet, making it almost impossible for the passengers in such scorching heat to use the facility.

They said that the Balochistan Express, which used to make a stop at the station, now passed via Dadu since Dec 27-violence, much to the inconvenience of passengers of Khairpur, Naushahro Feroze, Sukkur, Nawabshah and Gothki. They said that many other trains did not have any stop at this important station. They included Shalimar Express, Allama Iqbal Express, Karachi Express, Millat, Sindh Express, Zakariya Express, Fareed, Hazara, Pakistan, Karakoram Express and Faisalabad Night Coach, they complained.

The president of the Anjuman-i-Tajiran, Kutbuddin Shaikh, said that Khairpur was the largest date market of South Asia, which exported dates to India and other countries, but the government had not run a goods’ train for the city to facilitate the trade. The traders had to take their product to Rohri station to ship it outside, he said.Asad Shah Abidi, the general secretary of the Shah Abdul Latif University Teachers Association, said that the middle class of Khairpur had to travel to Rohri for their onward journey to Karachi and other parts of the Punjab, incurring more expenses and wasting precious time.

He said that the traders and civil society activists had been observing hunger strikes and processions, demanding the trains’ stop at the city for several years, which prompted some higher railways officials to visit the station but they did nothing save making hollow announcements.