Mumbai : A day after the Mumbai Government Railway Police (GRP) arrested a 22-year-old youth, Tanveer Shaikh, for allegedly snatching away a female scribe’s mobile phone in the wee hours of Tuesday, the Commissioner of GRP, Ravinder Singal said that he is going to write to the Railways to decrease the number of ladies compartment on Central Railway (CR) (excluding Harbour Line, which is also managed by CR and has only nine compartments in trains) from five to three to match the number of guards per train.
The victim, Manisha Gurav works for a Hindi eveninger and had been on her way home to Dombivli when the incident took place. The train had reached Kalwa station and halted there when Shaikh allegedly got into the compartment and snatched the phone away from her. There was no GRP guard in the compartment when the incident took place.
On the CR where the trains have 12 compartments, three guards – two of GRP and one of Homeguard – are deployed for security after 8 pm. The guards are present in three out of the five of the ladies compartments at night. Since there are no guards in two compartments, announcements are made asking women to travel in only those compartments which have guards and not in those without them. But still the confusion persists.
In order to try and remove this confusion, Singal is presently collating data of all trains that ply on the CR after 9 pm to find out if the number of ladies compartments can be reduced. “The number of women travelling after 9 pm is less and only decreases as the night progresses. So there is no need for five compartments as such. I am going to write to the Railways on Monday and ask if we can experiment with less number of compartments, hence doing away with the confusion,” he said.
Owing to demands having been made by men in the past to post guards in general compartments too, when asked if the GRP can place a guard in every compartment of every train at night, Singal said that that would be impossible as the whole force would have to be engaged in providing security to trains. “We also need to deploy our staff at railway stations and GRP stations. It is impossible to spare 12 officers for one train. Besides there are so many services plying at night too,” he said.
Singal stressed on the fact that instead of increasing the number of staff, the quality of security and surveillance should be increased by enhancing coordination, deploying CCTV cameras and restricting access points to railway stations.
