Passengers wait to enter a Bihar bound train at the New Delhi Railway Station.
With only five days left for Chhath Puja, a Hindu festival, thousands of devotees thronged the New Delhi Railway Station today to catch the Bihar bound trains.
Chhath Puja, dedicated to the Sun God, is celebrated six days after Diwali and is one of Bihar's most popular festivals.
As people packed themselves into train coaches with some even squatting inside the bathrooms, many of them said they were travelling without tickets.
"We don't have confirmed tickets, but we have to leave today," said a passenger.
Another said, "My family is inside the train and there is no way I can go through this crowd and join them. I can't even reach them on the phone."
The policemen present at the platforms helped manage the crowd, but they could not do more as they are not authorised to stop passengers from entering the train.
Meanwhile authorities admitted that the 35 special trains started for this festival are not enough.
"There is a huge gap between demand and supply. We are running 35 special trains from Delhi to Patna...admit this is not enough to manage festival rush," said Anurag Sachan, New Delhi's Divisional Railway Manager.
"Normally we sell 35,000 unreserved tickets, but yesterday we sold 60,000...I would like to appeal to people to maintain law and order," he added.