AHMEDABAD/BHARUCH : The terror attack on India’s commercial and entertainment capital Mumbai hit traffic to this city of dreams, from Gujarat as frightened commuters cancelled their tickets.

Queues were seen outside Bharuch railway station to cancel tickets to Mumbai. Usually, the station sees a lot of crowd from this industrial belt headed to the financial capital.

Bus services to Mumbai also saw a drop in passengers and several NRGs scheduled to fly from Mumbai, diverted their tickets to Delhi.

The Shatabdi which came from Mumbai to Ahmedabad was nearly empty on Thursday even as the crowd to Mumbai saw a drastic drop. Pramod Sharma, a guard on Saurashtra-Janata express told TOI at Ahmedabad railway station, “There has been a 70 per cent drop in passengers for Mumbai, and the train is mostly filled with passengers headed to closeby stations.”

But there were some like Dhansukhlala Makwana, 31, who was off to Bombay Central to attend a wedding. “I am scared, but for how long can we run away,” he said.

Girish Dubey, 24, was another braveheart headed for Mumbai. “One cannot stay holed up in one place. I am not scared, but I will stay alert,” he said.

Riyaz Mansuri, a resident of Nabipur village in Bharuch, who was to travel to South Africa on Friday with his family cancelled 14 bus tickets from Bharuch to Mumbai and three air tickets for South Africa. “We have seen the terror attack live on TV and are extremely frightened. We would rather bear the ticket cancellation charges but will never use Mumbai airport to fly abroad,” said Ahmed Mansuri, father of Riyaz.

Bharuch-based Bhaiji Travels and Zee Travels have cancelled all the buses and other vehicles which were booked for Mumbai. They have decided to terminate the buses at Bharuch. Sunil Tapiyawala, proprietor of Zee Travels, said, “We learnt that Maharashtra police is not allowing any vehicle inside city and we don’t want to take any risks.”

Source: timesofindia