E-Paper
Passenger safety in jeopardy
THE FIGHT for supremacy between two railway security agencies like the Government Railway Police and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) jeopardises passengers? security and they often fall prey to criminals on board trains. With lack of resources and manpower, the RPF, also entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring passengers? safety for the last two years, has been experiencing a lot of difficulty as it is entrusted with a new responsibility without being given the powers that the GRP enjoys.
THE FIGHT for supremacy between two railway security agencies like the Government Railway Police and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) jeopardises passengers’ security and they often fall prey to criminals on board trains.
With lack of resources and manpower, the RPF, also entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring passengers’ safety for the last two years, has been experiencing a lot of difficulty as it is entrusted with a new responsibility without being given the powers that the GRP enjoys.
Incidents of theft, loot and travel by unauthorised passengers in sleeper compartments, are on the rise in trains of Varanasi division of the North Eastern Railway and Northern railways. Only a handful cases are brought to the notice of the GRP as most of the passengers, in haste to reach their destination, avoid to go to the police station.
On Saturday some passengers traveling in the general coaches of Vikramshila express were allegedly forced to pay Rs 300-500 by a group of ticket collectors and GRP personnel between Mughalsarai and Patna.
As per railway ministry directive, passengers may lodge their complaints in the moving police outpost in trains. However, such outpost has been introduced only in New Delhi-bound Kashi Vishwanath Express train from Varanasi.
RPF cops travelling in several trains of North Eastern Railway sector from Varanasi upto Chhapra in Bihar often get into tussle with GRP men miscreants nabbed by them are not booked by the GRP.
Divisional safety commissioner of the North Eastern Railways, Amresh Kumar Singh, said “For the last two years, RPF has been assigned the responsibility of ensuring the safety of passengers while earlier it only used to protect the railway property. RPF cops on escort duty have been travelling in several trains on different routes of NER towards Gorakhpur, Allahabad and Chhapra in Bihar.
In response to a query about passengers safety when dacoit gangs strike in trains, an inspector of GRP at Varanasi Cantonment Railway Station said, the GRP cops from Varanasi had been travelling on different routes of the Northern Railways such as on Mughalsarai route up to Vyasnagar, on Lucknow route up to Badshahpur and Janghai and on Allahabad route up to Jangiganj.
