Pune-Solapur DEMU: Residents worried about overnight travel
According to passenger groups, the service is 'worrisome' due to the frequency with which 'dacoits and robbers' have attacked the trains passing the route in the past.
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The trains will pass through Daund-Kurduwadi area.
COMMUTERS AND security personnel have sounded an alarm over the Central Railway’s (CR’s) decision to run DEMU rakes as an intercity service between Pune and Solapur during the night.
According to passenger groups, the service is “worrisome” due to the frequency with which “dacoits and robbers” have attacked the trains passing the route in the past.
As per the notification issued by the CR, three rakes — each consisting 10 coaches — will replace the conventional rakes that ply as Pune-Solapur-Pune passenger services twice a day.
As per the schedule, DEMU service 51449 will start from Pune at 8.15 am and reach Solapur at 3.30 pm. The Solapur-Pune service (51449) will start from Solapur at 11 pm and reach Pune the next morning at 6.35 am.
Similarly, DEMU service — Solapur-Pune — will start at 11.40 am and reach at 8.15 pm. Pune-Solapur train will start at 10.50 pm and will reach at 8.05 am.
Of the four train services, two (41450 and 51455) will cover most of the distance during the night.
Harsha Shah of Railway Pravasi Group said, “There are some structural differences between DEMU coaches and conventional ones. Since DEMU is supposed to operate like a local service, the doors are much bigger, the windows are broader and they don’t have grills. The windows are, in fact, so big that people can enter and exit the train using them, with ease. Given this, it’s certainly a matter of worry that such trains will pass through Daund-Kurduwadi area, which has been infamous for attacks by dacoits.”
Shah added that the fear of dacoits is so prevalent in this section of the route that whenever a train passes this area after sunset, passengers are advised to keep the doors and windows locked.
A senior officer with the Government Railway Police (GRP) said, given the frequency with which “dacoities” happen and the built of DEMU trains, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) will have to remain more vigilant on the route.
“They will have to deploy more staff and remain more vigilant,” a senior GRP official said.
Meanwhile, Divisional Security Commissioner (RPF, Pune) said, “We will be more cautious so that such incidents don’t happen.”
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