ADG Railway: Train robbers getting smarter and hi-tech

ADG T S Bhal

• ADG T S Bhal cautions passengers not to blindly trust unknown co-passengers 

By Dheeraj Fartode 

Next time, when you are travelling by train, don’t blindly trust your unknown hi-tech co-passenger and be alert while befriending such a person. For, recent spate of thefts and other crimes in running trains were committed by very attractive looking, smart and suave persons who pose as genuine passenger to win the trust of their unsuspecting victim. Revealing this modus operandi of this new breed of great railway robbers, Additional Director General of Police (ADG), Government Railway Police (GRP) T S Bhal has urged passengers never to lower their guard while travelling.

During an exclusive interview with The Hitavada, Bhal confirmed that growing incidents of on-board crime are executed by very decent looking criminals, with no past record. Often they purchase valid tickets of AC compartments, apparently using fake or fabricated id documents and win the confidence of their (usually elderly persons, senior citizens or people who are carrying cash and jewellery). They communicate with other members of the gang using hi-tech gadgets and very shrewdly dispose of the high-valued goods, cash and gold stolen in a running train.

The GRP has nabbed many such modules, but due to severe manpower crunch, we have our limitations, Bhal stated. It may be recalled that GRP had failed in detecting three major thefts in Duranto express collectively worth Rs 1 crore for past one year.

Talking about vacancies in GRP, Bhal said, the force is working under tremendous workload as the number of passengers are increasing rapidly every year with announcement of new trains. “It is not possible to guard each part of every train due to staff crunch, which ultimately results into incidents like thefts in the running train,” he admitted. “Notwithstanding tremendous manpower crunch, GRP and Railway Protection Force (RPF) are trying their level best to provide security to train passengers,” he asserted.

It is quite easy for district police or state machinery to recruit more police personnel as per demographic changes. But, things are not so easy in railways, Bhal pointed out. It needs approval from railway board as the board shares 50 per cent cost of policemen, he said. Security forces need more staff to tackle security challenges and make train journey more safer, the ADG said.

State railway police have three divisions i.e. Nagpur district, Pune district and Mumbai commissionarate. Nagpur district, which has jurisdiction from Gondia to Igatpuri (near Nasik), covers 70 per cent area of Maharashtra. It is difficult task for senior officer to supervise entire division. When asked the ADG about creation of new district, he said that state government has not approved the proposal hence, we are going to shift Additional SP to Aurangabad. Nagpur district GRP has a SP and a Additional SP level post.

When asked about lowest detection and conviction rate in GRP, the top cop said that offences in railways have very different facet, overlapping jurisdictions, very weak evidence and little follow-up from the complainant. A case is registered at Nagpur by a passenger for offence which takes place near Bhopal and due to inter-state jurisdiction problem and vast territory to be guarded by GRP, it becomes almost impossible for the security agencies to nab the culprits.