Trains crawl in Delhi-NCR due to encroachments along the tracks, allowing gangs to board and get off slow-moving trains easily. Women and elderly are the soft targets with both RPF and GRP reeling under manpower shortages. Illegal clusters also make train operations risky, and have stalled several mobility projects for years
A 22-year-old woman is thrown off a running Express train when she challenged a robber trying to flee with her luggage. A Muslim teen is lynched in a local by a mob that called him “beef-eater” and “anti-national”. A man’s body is found in a pool of blood inside a coach, while another got shot inside a train.
These are some of the horrors that train passengers in Delhi-NCR witnessed in the past one month alone. There have also been cases of rape and molestation. Statistics show that the period between 2013 (760) and 2015 (3,356) saw a massive spike of 341 per cent in crime cases.
In many cases, the culprits got away. Railway and police officials blame heavy encroachments on railway land for most of these crimes. Criminals carrying weapons easily board and get off slow-moving trains at these stretches to target vulnerable passengers and avoid detection by railway security at stations.
Over 50,000 illegal jhuggis on railway land have been identified till now across Delhi-NCR, of which 23,000 fall in the safety zone — tracks only 15 metres away or less. These encroachments also result in littering and put train operations at risk and cause delays. Poor visibility means reduced speed and risk-fraught travel with piles of garbage seen dangerously close to tracks.
Some of the worst-hit areas are: Mayapuri, Sukhdev Nagar, Rakhi Market, Old Seelampur, Lal Bagh, Shriram Nagar, Shahdara, Tughlakabad, Shakurbasti, and Dayabasti.
Somna Vij is a computer operator at a government office in Nizamuddin. A resident of Sarojini Nagar, she has been using Delhi’s suburban rail service — a 53.36-km network connecting 21 stations — for 20 years. For her, a lot has changed in the past decade. “Now, whenever I get late, my husband or son comes to pick me up. They do not allow me to take a train after sundown. Safety has become a concern. This was not the case earlier,” she says.
She has watched in horror young boys boarding moving trains and threatening, teasing, and even molesting girls and women in local trains. “Two months ago, some men snatched a woman’s bag and jumped off the moving train near Shivaji Bridge. There is no fear, no security,” Vij says.
The lynching of Junaid Khan (16) on June 22, which made national headlines, also took place in a moving Delhi-Mathura local. As DNA exclusively reported, the mob may have boarded the train between Okhla and Tughlakabad stations in Delhi. Police are still combing slum clusters on both sides of the tracks to nab the main accused, who was allegedly carrying a “one-foot-long knife-like thing” in the crime.
Krishna Jha often travels between Haryana’s Palwal and Delhi’s Kirti Nagar. “I do not let my wife travel on local trains even in the afternoon. It is not safe. I have heard that women travelling alone are often targeted,” he says.
Security on trains and railway premises is the responsibility of the central government’s Railway Protection Force (RPF), while crime cases are handled by the state’s Government Railway Police(GRP).
Officials say the biggest challenge is manpower shortage. “Both RPF and GRP are short staffed, unable to handle crowds. Keeping an eye on every train is just not possible,” says an RPF officer.
The daily footfall at the stations in the Capital is 15 lakh. The stations together see around 1,000 trains every day.
Another menace
The railway’s Rs 100-crore plan to build walls along its 100-km network in Delhi remains pending because of lack of funds, resulting in hundreds of pedestrians being run over by trains every year.
While all 10 railroad crossings in the city are manned, tracks cut through densely populated areas, mostly slums, where authorities have failed to put up barricades or build foot-bridges.
Illegal settlements on both sides of the tracks are the biggest hurdle in the construction of walls. Authorities first planned six-foot-high walls — which would also check encroachment and make railway premises secure — after the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai.
India’s biggest public transporter has been under fire from the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for its failure to relocate jhuggis and ensure sanitation on its premises.
“We have requested the Delhi government again for expeditious removal of encroachments from railway land. We paid Rs 11.25 crore for this in 2003-04. Nothing much has happened,” said RN Singh, Divisional Railway Manager, Delhi.
Recent horrors
June 29: A woman thrown off the moving Shan-E- Punjab train by a robber who tried to snatch her belongings
June 22: Junaid Khan lynched by a mob on a moving Delhi-Mathura local
Sept 2016: More than a dozen passengers of Gorakhdham Express robbed by a gun-wielding gang
Sept 2016: Rail staff on strike demanding safety after a robber attacked a goods train driver
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