The Government Railway Police (GRP) has expedited its efforts to establish the identity of victims fatally knocked down by trains across the State.
Special teams have been constituted at Tiruchi, Madurai, Chennai and Coimbatore subdivisions to accelerate the probe and achieve breakthrough expeditiously.
The teams have been spared of other duties so as to enable them concentrate on their assigned task.
The teams set up at Tiruchi and Madurai subdivisions are headed by an officer in the rank of a Sub Inspector. Sustained and meticulous efforts put in by the Tiruchi and Madurai teams helped in establishing the identity of 21 dead persons in the last three months since their formation.
The Government Railway Police has two districts – Chennai and Tiruchi. The Tiruchi Railway Police district constitutes of Tiruchi and Madurai subdivisions with 22 railway police stations and eight out posts falling within its limit.
The Tiruchi Railway Police district commanding a vast territory stretching from Villupuram in the north to to Kanyakumari in the south and from Nagore in the east and Kodumudi in the west, and up to Bhagavathipuram railway gate on the Tirunelveli-Tenkasi route and up to Gomangalam in the Palani-Pollachi route.
Railway Police sources said the substantial numbers of persons run over by trains across the State whose identity could not be established prompted the authorities in constituting the teams.
Establishing the identity of the victim in many cases have proved to be a real challenge for the railway police.
It becomes difficult if the face of the person run over by a train is completely disfigured, say railway police sources.
As part of the investigation, the photographs of victims are circulated to the police stations of neighbouring districts.
This is done to match them with the photographs of missing persons in the police stations in a bid to ascertain the identity of the run over victims, says an officer.
The list of missing persons along with their photographs uploaded in the Tamil Nadu police website had also come in handy for the special teams in ascertaining the identity of the deceased, say railway police sources.
Ever since its formation three months ago, the Tiruchi team established the identity of 12 dead persons till now out of the 75 unidentified victims.
The Madurai team had achieved breakthrough in 9 out of the 107 cases entrusted to them.
The teams are pursuing their leads in tracing the identity of the remaining victims.
