Although the RPF had detected just 47 cases in 2015, this year there have been 44 registered cases already.
The railway ministry's recent emphasis on gradually building up the Railway Protection Force into the prime crime-fighting agency on the railway network seems to be paying off. Statistics, made available to dna by Western Railway's RPF Mumbai division unit, show that for the first five months of the year, the number of cases detected as well as persons arrested reveal that the force is well on its way to better the performance it came up with in 2015. The cases pertain to theft of passenger belonging (TOPB), said RPF officials.
While all of 2015, the RPF had detected 47 cases, this year between January and May, the RPF had already detected 44 cases. It arrested 54 people last year for stealing passenger belongings, while this year till May the number of arrests have already touched 48.
In 2015, the RPF had managed to recover about 12 per cent of the value of things stolen from passengers. In comparison, the January to May period this year has been better with recovery of stolen items standing at 19 per cent. However, officials agreed that recovering stolen items continued to remain the toughest ask as far as railway crime-fighting was concerned.
"It is almost certain that we will be making more cases, arresting more people and detecting more cases than previous years. The emphasis is to turn the force into a proper crime and policing unit so that one day the RPF can become the sole policing agency on the railways, something like the Federal Railway Police prevalent in many countries," said a senior RPF officer.
One of the major security changes that the railway ministry wants to make on the railway network is to turn the current three-tier police system into a two-tier one. Currently, the railways has the RPF (which is under the railway ministry), the government railway police (under respective state governments) and the district police (also under the state government).
The railway ministry wants to have just the RPF for policing on the railway network while the district police will take care of all cases falling under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Numbers game:
Property stolen from passengers between Jan-May 2016: Rs1.7 crores
Property recovered during the same period: Rs32.47 lakhs (around 19 per cent of the total value)
Property stolen from passengers during 2015: Rs6.87 crore
Property recovered during the same period- Rs83.31 lakh (around 12 per cent)
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