Police avert rail roko near Sandhurst Road

January 24, 2017 12:35 am | Updated 12:35 am IST

Mumbai: The police averted what could have been the third rail roko on the Central line in a span of two weeks, after they received information that residents of Mazgaon were planning a protest against the delay in buiding a replacment for Hancock Bridge.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) demoilished the 135-year-old bridge in November 2015. A new bridge was to be built as soon as possible, but still has not been built. Mazgaon residents, who would earlier use the bridge to cross between Dongri and Byculla, have to go all the way to Sandhurst Road station to use the foot overbridge there. Many residents have started crossing the railway tracks, putting their lives at risk.

According to sources, the Dongri and Byculla police, between whose jurisdictions the area is divided, received information on Sunday night that a flash rail roko was being planned on Monday morning. “We immediately established contact with the local residents and started trying to dissuade them from conducting the rail roko, which would have affected services during peak hours on an important stretch of the Central line,” said Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone I.

While some residents agreed not to protest, several others remained adamant and on Monday morning, the police deployed personnel on either side of the railway tracks.

While the Dongri police turned away close to 100 people who had turned up to stage the rail roko, the Byculla police had to take five people into preventive custody. Personnel remained deployed till afternoon.

The Central line has already witnessed two rail rokos this month, one on January 12 between Dombivali and Kopar stations, and the other on January 19 near Titwala station. Both the agitations were conducted to stop the demolition of illegal slums near the railway tracks. and resulted in services being affected severely.

There was also a rail roko near the Sandhurst Road station on February 17 last year, after a 14-year-old boy was run over by a train while crossing the railway tracks. Residents of his locality poured onto the railway tracks and held up services for around half an hour before they could be cleared, and the issue of the absence of an alternative to the Hancock bridge also came into focus at the time.

Officials said that a tender was awarded to a private firm last year to build another bridge at the spot. But a public interest litigation was later filed in the Bombay High Court, claiming that the contractor had been blacklisted, after which the tender was cancelled. The contractor later went to court with a petition of his own, claiming that he was not blacklisted, and the matter is still sub judice.

“The option of constructing a temporary bridge with the help of the Indian Army was also being explored in the meantime, but a decision has not yet been reached,” said a source.

BMC Public Relations Officer Vijay Khabale and Chief Engineer (Bridges) S.O. Kori could not be reached for comment.

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