The Railway Protection Force (RPF) headquarters in New Delhi has issued a detailed set of guidelines on train escorting, a very important component of security services provided by the RPF, to make it more effective.
Issued by the Director-General of RPF recently, the guidelines have been circulated among Senior Divisional Security Commissioners / Divisional Security Commissioners of various railway divisions across the country for compliance.
Foremost among the directive is that the Senior Divisional Security Commissioners / Divisional Security Commissioners should coordinate with the Superintendent of Police, Government Railway Police, concerned to identify vulnerable trains and sections on which escort was required.
Vulnerability of the train would had to be determined by the number of offences such as dacoity, robbery, theft of passenger belongings, and drugging. Top officers of the RPF and the Government Railway Police (GRP) would have to decide on the trains to be escorted by RPF and by the GRP.
The directive said trains which were vulnerable to Indian Penal Code offences should be given priority for the GRP and those vulnerable to Railway Act for RPF escort.
It said all “highly vulnerable” trains should be escorted and a system of “random escorting” be adopted in respect of other “vulnerable” trains to bring an element of surprise so that anti-socials were unable to predict whether a vulnerable train would or would not be escorted.
Random escorting may be decided a couple of hours before the train was to arrive and would be directly controlled by the RPF Inspector / GRP Inspector concerned.
The random escort could be carried continuously for three or four days and then randomly once or twice a week and again continuously for two or three days to act as a deterrent to criminals so that they were unable to predict on the escort pattern.
The escort teams should be briefed in detail by the RPF Inspector / Duty Officer about the problems peculiar to a train, section where they were being deputed, the criminals / anti-socials elements active in the area, and the do’s and don’ts of escorting.
The directive said the Senior Divisional Security Commissioners / Divisional Security Commissioners should ensure that escort parties had FIR forms available with them to assist passengers’ en-route without having to break their journey for lodging an FIR.
Joint panel formed to identify vulnerable trains
Pursuant to the directive, the RPF officers held a meeting with their GRP counterparts here a few days ago regarding the guidelines issued by the RPF headquarters.
The joint meeting attended by the Divisional Security Commissioners of Tiruchi and Madurai Divisions besides Superintendent of Police, Railways, Tiruchi discussed the subject to work out a mechanism to implement the guidelines.
It was decided at the top-level meeting that a joint committee would be constituted consisting of two RPF Inspectors and a GRP sub-inspector to identify the “vulnerable” trains passing through their jurisdiction and come out with recommendations.
RPF sources said the committee members would meet shortly to finalise the modalities and present their recommendations which would be discussed by the RPF and GRP authorities before being put into place.
The RPF was entrusted with the additional responsibility of escorting trains in 2004 following an amendment in the RPF Act.
The RPF and GRP deploy their personnel on board different long distance trains for escort in a bid to check offences.
The sources said theft of passenger belongings in moving trains tops in the list of property offences.
To augment its train beat strength, the GRP a few months ago had roped in personnel of the Tamil Nadu Special Police and deployed them along with railway police constables.
