Mumbai: The railways administration has started a drive to evict garbage collectors from its property after a 19-year-old was arrested on Saturday for placing a 60-kg metal piece on the railway tracks between Masjid station and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.
Deva Sukhlal Kol, a waste-picker who collects plastic bottles on railway property, was arrested by the Government Railway Police (GRP) after the metal piece was discovered on the tracks.
The railway police spent the whole of Monday interrogating Kol. An IB team also interrogated him and found he was frequently changing his statement. “In one version, Kol mentioned that he lost his mobile phone and went to register a complaint, but the police didn’t help him, and so he did this to grab their attention,” an official said.
Though Kol, who is also a drug addict, is still being questioned, the railway police denied any involvement of terrorists or that it was an act of sabotage. When asked how Kol, given his frail built, was able to place a 60-kg metal piece on the tracks, a GRP official said, “He didn’t do it intentionally as he was intoxicated at the time. He was walking along the tracks and spotted the metal piece. Since it was on a heap of soil, a push ensured that it rolled over onto the tracks.”
A Permanent Way Inspector, who is tasked with maintaining the track and embanking, had left track pieces and other material at the site. Machindra Chavan, ACP, GRP, said, “We have been reminding the railways to remove such unwanted tracks pieces for months now. There is no terrorist angle in this arrest, though we are investigating the case in detail.”
Kol has been remanded in police custody till April 27.
