Brutal assault on two college students by their seniors with iron rods and sharp objects for over close to one hour on a night running train has again brought to fore the issue of passenger security in the night trains, while the police trots out the familiar “staff shortage” as an excuse.
“My nephew has become the latest victim to lack of security inside the train. Though he was cruelly assaulted for close to one hour no one came to his rescue. He was travelling on one of the main express trains and there were no police officials on it.
Had they pushed out my nephew from the train a little later, he could have ended up having the same fate of Soumya,” said K.S. Prasad (50), an uncle of 19-year-old Geevarghese John who was assaulted and thrown out of the train while returning home from his engineering college in Salem.
Former Kollam Railway Magistrate Mohammad Sheriff, who had given verdict in a record 73,000 cases during his five-year tenure, says, “Even the compulsory rule of deploying police personnel in important and night running trains are not being followed due to staff shortage.”
While the Railway Protection Force (RPF) is concerned with security of the rail premises and infrastructure, acute staff shortage is preventing the Government Railway Police (GRP) from deploying escort personnel on all important trains.
The personnel strength of most of the GRP stations is only 30 per cent of the required staff to carry out effective policing.
Another rule stipulates that guns could be provided only if there is a minimum two personnel in a train. Currently we are finding it hard to deploy even a single constable in the trains, a GRP officer said.
“We had all along maintained ever since the Soumya murder case that the there is no protection inside the trains.
Among others, the role of the RPF should be changed from being a guardian of railway infrastructure to looking after the safety of commuters,” P. Rajeev MP said.
The statistics point out that the crime graph involving running trains is increasing. The Ernakulam Government Railways Police alone recorded a total of 104 and 110 cases in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
In Trivandrum division alone that extends from Thirunelveli to Bharatapuzha (Shoranur), there are nearly 90 Express trains operating every day on an average, besides the 56 passenger trains carrying nearly 12,96,000 passengers, a top railway official said.
The combined strength of the RPF and GRR in the division is about 1000 personnel, one security personnel for every 1296 passengers.
“Yes…shortage of staff is a problem. Currently we are providing two escorts in select Express trains and in most of the passenger trains. Problem sensitive trains are identified and then resources are used optimally,” a senior RPF officer at Ernakulam said.
Meanwhile, there is a demand that the railway police should be given additional power to conduct full probe on incidents happening in trains or railway premises, instead of the local police which often results in conflict of jurisdiction.
For instance in the Geevarghese attack case, though the details of the accused were already known, confusion among who should deal with the case has resulted in the accused going scot free so far.
The Kerala police have taken the statement of the victim only the family of the victim approached by the Chief Minister.
