Passengers worried about their safety while travelling in trains can now breathe a little easy. In order to make railway journey more safe and sound, the Indian Railways has worked out a seven-point plan, which aims to curb terror threats and increasing crimes in trains. In a high level meeting held in the presence of state home secretaries, officials of the Home Ministry (MHA) and railways, it was decided that security should be tightened in the Naxal bastions by ensuring rapid movement of forces.

In this context Girish Dodhia, general manager of Lalji Mulji Transport Company, a mid-sized transportation firm in Mumbai says, “Over the years Naxalites have posed serious threat to the security of passengers. For example, last year the ‘red rebels’ hijacked the New Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Express and on numerous occasions they have blown up tracks, which is a serious concern. We hope that the swift movement of security forces will help to nab these anti-social elements.”

Inter-state police teams to be formed

The action plan also envisaged the formation of inter-state police teams for better coordination to investigate crimes committed in inter-state running trains. A railway official who declined to be named said the railways will carry out a special drive to identify and arrest criminals operating in trains and at railway stations through better networking between railway protection forces (RPF) and government railway police (GRP).

In order to prevent terror attacks, the officials present in the meeting proposed to hold such meetings on a quarterly basis between the officials of the Home Ministry, railways, Intelligence Bureau (IB), state home secretaries and general managers of various railway zones.

“The Indian Railway is a vast network. It is very difficult to curb terror threats without proper intelligence sharing. We hope the plan will help in countering terror threats to some extent,” says Bimal Goenka, proprietor of Amit Transport Company, a mid-sized transportation firm in Kolkata. The seven-point plan has been proposed to ensure better coordination between the state governments and railway officials to provide optimum security to railway projects.