toi photographer b a raju recounts the harrowing experience he had to undergo travelling along with his wife and daughter from chennai to visakhapatnam by howrah mail that left mgr chennai central at 7 10pm on february 27the sleeper coach was packed with people sitting in the doorway the aisle and on berths almost an hour before departure his family members and he had to step on people and luggage to reach their seats the tte came only the next morning the experience shows unauthorised passengers crowding sleeper class coaches began long before the holi rush i reached mgr chennai central at 6pm an hour before the departure of howrah mail as i was travelling with family and some luggage to visakhapatnam i could not believe my eyes when i reached coach s3 it was already full with people hanging on the footboard there was no way that we could get in i looked around for help but there were no railway staff or travelling ticket examinersi was wondering whether to travel or return it was impossible to think of travelling close to 13 hours that too overnight in a coach packed with unauthorised travellers almost all of them mensince we had decided to travel i had to pull out a few people from the footboard and had to make way once inside we had to hop over people and bags to reach our berths 17 1819 the situation there was worse five people were sitting on the lower berth reserved for me three on the upper berth their luggage was all over the floori had to force them out of the berths and managed to secure the three berths we had reserved the journey was scary especially for my wife and daughter there were around 30 people crammed in a coupe meant to seat eight i asked around almost all of them had unreserved ticketstwo hours into the trip i wanted to use the toilet it was three coupes away it took me around ten minutes to reach hopping over people bags stepping on the lower berths but a rude shock was awaiting me three people were travelling in the toilet thankfully the other one was emptywe had packed dinner from home but could not eat with so many people staring at us it was difficult to sleep the tte appeared only the next morning he charged rs 500 or more as fine but never bothered to evict them i could alight at visakhapatnam along with my family only because the train halts there for more than 15 minutes we would never have made it if the halt was only for a few minutes