1 cop a bogey in outgoing trains

MUMBAI, June 4: The Government Railway Police (GRP) is to shortly implement an ambitious proposal to have one armed constable in each bogey ...

MUMBAI, June 4: The Government Railway Police (GRP) is to shortly implement an ambitious proposal to have one armed constable in each bogey of all passenger trains leaving Mumbai at night.

“The scheme will come into effect within a week,” said Special IG, GRP, Sudhakar Suradkar. The GRP had been working on this scheme in conjunction with the Railway Protection Force (RPF), Mumbai police and railway authorities since earlier this year, he said.

While this `one cop a bogey’ scheme has been in the pipeline for quite some time, it seems to have received a fresh impetus from the two robberies that have occurred on two trains leaving Kurla in the last 10 days. In the first robbery that occurred on May 27, four knife-wielding miscreants boarded the general compartment of a Gorakhpur-bound holiday special as it left Kurla terminus. One passenger was injured as the robbers decamped with cash and jewellery worth Rs 16,000. This Tuesday, three miscreants boarded the same train and robbed four passengers of Rs10,700. The modus operandi in both cases was identical, leading police to believe it is the work of the same gang. The GRP currently deploys one head constable and three armed constables in all night trains. “But since we found this force insufficient, we have decided to deploy constables in each bogey,” Suradkar said. The personnel will be deployed on all trains leaving Kurla, Bandra, CST and Mumbai Central.

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Since Tuesday’s train robbery, two GRP riflemen have been deployed in each general compartment of the 11 long-distance trains leaving Kurla T. GRP officials say the constables have standing instructions to use their rifles to protect passengers and their property.

After the first robbery on May 27, four plainclothes GRP personnel were posted in the the general compartments of each train leaving Kurla. This was discontinued after Tuesday’s robbery, when the robbers struck in a compartment without policemen. “The general compartments are never sequentially arranged, so our men have a hard timecommunicating with each other,” a GRP officer said.

Currently, around six GRP riflemen accompany each train leaving Kurla up to Kalyan and Manmad. But in the new scheme, constables will accompany the train till the state border or the first station of the adjoining state. Armed escorts of around three constables per bogey are already being provided for ladies compartments of night trains.

Suradkar said the scheme involves redeployment of at least 600 GRP personnel for bogey duty. This change in deployment will see the GRP handing over certain patrolling duties and responsibilities to the Railway Protection Force (RPF).

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