A record four lakh passengers clambered onto the Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) trains despite being a general holiday on the Ganesh idols’ final immersion day when the services were extended for the first time till 2 a.m. of early hours of Saturday.
Khairatabad metro station, because of its access to the big Ganesh idol in the vicinity and the Necklace Road, was quite obviously the much popular station with 22,490 riders using it on the Red Line or Corridor 1 – Miyapur to L.B. Nagar route. In fact, one side of the station had to be closed on police advice to prevent people crisscrossing and disrupting the heavy traffic flow.
There was a surge of crowd at the station for about 10 minutes at 8 p.m. otherwise, the public had cooperated well, and by and large no incident of any kind of misbehaviour was experienced despite the late hours, said HMR Managing Director N.V.S. Reddy.
