Saturday seemed like any other day at the Nungambakkam railway station, with one noticeable difference: police personnel stood all along the platform, where a young woman was murdered early on Friday.
One policeman was talking to a stall owner, another watched the trains. Most commuters were shocked and fearful. A few had come just to see the spot of the murder.
“The crowd only comes in after 8 a.m. when people head to office; so there wouldn’t have been too many people around,” said the employee of a food stall.
At Chetpet station, a first-year MBBS student of Government Kilpauk Medical College, a daily commuter, said she had never seen the police or other security personnel at the station. “I was slightly apprehensive today,” she said. At night, the approach to the station from the Chetpet bridge is also not safe. Several persons can be seen crossing the tracks at the station.
At Saidapet and Guindy , there was not a policeman in sight at 10.30 in the morning. Guindy in particular, which saw a large number of women take the train, did not see any special protection measures in place.
While all the three stations do not have CCTV cameras, the Mambalam station has eight CCTV cameras and an integrated security system control room.
A stationmaster said that commuters had started demanding new initiatives to promote safety and security at suburban stations.
Even as the Railway Protection Force and the Government Railway Police were said to be present in most stations on Saturday, traditional beat policing was visibly weak in most of the stations, reportedly owing to manpower shortage.
(With Zubeda Hamid, S. Poorvaja and Aloysius Xavier Lopez)
“I have never seen police or security personnel at Chetpet station”
— A student of Government Kilpauk Medical College
