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In a first, 26 sent to jail for crossing railway tracks illegally

From now on, offenders to spend a day in prison apart from paying `1,000-fine.

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From now on, offenders to spend a day in prison apart from paying `1,000-fine

Pune: If you are caught crossing railway tracks illegally, you will not escape by just paying fine. Instead, you will have to spend one day in jail.

For the first time in the history of Central Railway’s Pune division, 26 people were sent to jail for one day for doing so on February 11.

The railway administration has provided footover bridges (FOBs) at several points from where pedestrians are allowed to cross the railway tracks. However, it has been found that many people avoid using FOBs and enter into the railway tracks to save time. This, besides being illegal, is dangerous too.

Earlier, the railway administration would catch illegal trespassers and collect a fine of Rs1,000 from them. However, now the administration has decided to give stringent punishment by sending the illegal trespassers to jail for a day.

YK Singh, public relation officer of Central Railway’s Pune division, said, “Earlier, the administration would only collect a fine of Rs1,000. However, staff of railway protection force (RPF) carried out a drive recently and caught 26 people for illegally crossing the railway tracks.
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“The offenders were produced before the Pune railway court where it ordered not only a fine of Rs1,000, but also jail for all of them for a day. The court has also mentioned that any offender failing to pay fine of Rs1,000 will be send to jail for 30 days,” Singh said.

“It has been observed that illegal crossing of railway tracks not only possesses danger to a person, but can affect the whole schedule of trains on that route. Therefore, the railway administration has decided to take hard steps,” he added.

Speaking about the number of accidents on railway tracks, senior police inspector Mahendra Rokade, in-charge of Government Railway Police’s Pune unit, said, “Most of the accidents on railway tracks take place near Pimpri-Chinchwad. In fact, in 2012, 530 people lost their lives on railway tracks in Pune division.”

“Once the accident takes place, the train is stopped to remove the body from the engine. The drivers also has psychological impact after they see people getting trapped under the train in front of their eyes. We are appealing to people not to go for short-cuts in attempt to save time by crossing railway tracks illegally as it can take away your life,” he added.

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