For the railways, the neglect of unwanted elements, drug addicts, vagabonds and the lowlifes inhabiting the underbelly of the railway world is back to haunt them.
The instances of metal pieces being left on tracks — the latest being a piece of track left on the Harbour line between Dockyard and Reay Road stations late Tuesday night — has now reached alarming proportions, admit railway officials. Motormen from Mumbai — among the best trained in the country — have managed to ward off disaster. But the fear that someday something could go wrong lingers. For the railways, the neglect of unwanted elements, drug addicts, vagabonds and the lowlifes inhabiting the underbelly of the railway world is back to haunt them. Both railway cops and Railway Protection Force officers agree that these cases are the result of scrap theft going wrong or these unwanted elements hitting back at cops as revenge.
That fact that it is happening even though the railways is protected by two security agencies — the railway police and the RPF — is also worrying. However, a section of the police believe it is happening exactly because of this. In July 2004, several sections of the Railway Act were handed over to the under-prepared RPF from the way more experienced railway police. Among them was section 145 dealing with drunken behaviour, nuisance and 147 dealing with trespass into railway property. Officials point out that the RPF, even now, at best a security appendage of the railway bureaucracy, was ill-prepared for this new role.
The last time the railway police went after these unwanted elements on railway premises was August 2013 in the aftermath of a US national being attacked inside a Western Railway local train between Marine Lines and Charni Road. For the railway security agencies, the time for a repeat of that vigour is now.
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