Is there the need for a federal railway police in the country? Experts on the subject and serving officers are beginning to feel so. And they have ample reasons too! Recently, there was a spate of robberies on Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani Express, Indian railways' premier train. And there is a near total mistrust between railway police and railway protection force (RPF), especially on the dense Mumbai suburban sector. Aren't these reasons enough?
The federal railway policing system operates in several countries, including Britain, which laid the foundations of the vast Indian railway network. And experts believe such a system would give the hapless passengers on the world's fourth largest railway system, the required confidence on travelling safely.
Rajdhani muddle
The Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani passes through Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and the national capital region of Delhi, all having their own railway police departments. The route traverses three railway zones, each with its own RPF unit. While three of these units, which operate under the same director-general, act as a fairly cohesive unit, the railway police set-ups are mostly separate entities with distinct chain of commands.
For a passenger therefore, filing a complaint could mean and criss-crossing several states and travelling several hundred kilometres.
Passenger's plight
There were six thefts on Rajdhani Express over three days. As per the initial investigations, the robberies took place between Ratlam in MP and Kota in Rajasthan. However, by the time the passengers realised the theft had occurred the train was near Delhi and they had no option but to file a case with the New Delhi railway police. The procedure to transfer the cases to the state where the crime might have occurred is long enough for the case to lose its momentum.
Speaking to DNA, Nidhi Agrwal, whose handbag was stolen on the Rajdhani last Saturday, said: "We don't have any clue on the progress of our case. We filed a 'Zero' FIR with the New Delhi railway police and were told the case would be transferred to Kota railway police in Rajasthan. After that we have not heard from the police."
Mistrusting brothers-in-khakhi
RPF and railway police have always had an uneasy relationship, the major reason being that the powers of both overlap, causing considerable heartburn among the two forces and in extreme cases animosity. In Mumbai there have been instances of railway police filing case against RPF officials.
Another issue is that RPF, being a unit of the railway ministry, tends to get better infrastructure at railway stations, and railway police feel they get step-motherly treatment. The result is that railway police skip all meetings called by the general manager on issues of the railways, including passenger safety.
The commissioner of railway police, an IPS officer, reports to the state director-general of police and never attends meetings called by the general manager, an Indian Railway Service officer.
And RPF, which reports to railway bureaucracy, has often been accused of behaving like the compliant guards of the railway bureaucracy. The fact that the divisional railway manager writes the annual confidential reports of the RPF senior commandant (senior divisional security commissioner) curtails the independence of the RPF as a law-enforcing agency, said a wide array of RPF officers DNA spoke to.
"Making RPF the sole federal railway security agency will free us from the clutches of the railway bureaucracy and give teeth to safety and law enforcement on railways," said a senior RPF officer.
The way forward
V Balachandran, former special secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, and retired officer of 1959 IPS batch, said: "It's unfortunate that the safety of the passengers on Indian Railways is the responsibility of police forces of 29 different states. So very often, crime takes place in some state and as the train moves on the passenger has to file a case in some other state. Sometimes, the police in a particular state are reluctant to file an FIR of a crime committed in another state as transferring it involves formalities they want to avoid. If states agree, it will be possible to have a federal railway police. In fact, some time ago, the govt of India had circulated the draft of a bill to empower RPF as the federal railway police. States, however, opposed it. It is the way forward. Such a system exits in countries like Britain, China and Pakistan among others.
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