Kochi: Kochi city has witnessed three incidents of stone-pelting at trains—two at Kalamassery and one at Pachalam—in the past two months, but the Railway Protection Force and the local police concerned are still clueless on how to handle the issue and are blaming each other for the incidents.
While cities like Bangalore have been taking creative initiatives for protecting trains from such incidents by carrying out special campaigns, Kochi is yet to take up the matter in all seriousness.
In Bangalore, railway officials and local MLAs go by trains, alight at danger spots and talk to the local residents in a bid to control such deadly anti-social acts. According to RPF officials, the stones are thrown from the railway tracks and hence the incidents are under the jurisdiction of the local police.
“The police has to do regular patrolling at areas under risk. But we know that cops are held up with other duties too. So we can offer our services on special occasions. We had deployed officers at Pachalam and Kalamassery on New Year’s eve, when there were chances of people getting drunk and indulging in such nasty acts”, said RPF officer C.Vinod.
Although the Kalamassery police accepts that there have been stone-pelting incidents at trains, they are helpless on countering the issue. “There have been such incidents between the Kalamassery railway station and Muttam. We are doing our best by deploying officers in mufti. But it is impossible to go on a 24/7 patrolling,” said M.B.Latheef, Sub Inspector of Kalamassery police.
Both the RPF and local police have ruled out the possibility of installing CCTV cameras at danger spots. The other option would be to build protection net walls along the reported areas.
A minor boy had suffered serious head injury after a group of people had pelted stones at a moving express train in Pachalam.
