In a unique way of protesting, motormen of the Western Railway have planned to go on a hunger strike while not suspending train services.

Hundreds of motormen tied a black ribbon on their shirts and protested at Churchgate on Tuesday. They also handed over their memorandum of demands to Railway Board and Divisional Railway Manager, Mumbai division, WR.

According to the Motormen Association, there is shortage of motormen on the Western Railway route. There are only 350 motormen on this route. Several requests have been made in the past to increase the number of motormen, but no action has been taken yet, said the members of the association.

Devendra Yadav, chairman of Motormen Association, said, “We have a sent a memorandum of our demands to the Railway Board and the Divisional Railway Manager of WR. If our demands are not met, we will go on an indefinite hunger strike. But the train services will not be interrupted. We will work according to the schedule to avoid any inconvenience to the public. We will not even touch water during the strike.”

“We will run trains as per the schedule. We have to make a lot of compromises. There are 70 vacancies which have not been filled and we have to bear the brunt. We have also demanded that there should be an assistant motorman with the main motorman,” said one of the motormen.