Guwahati Railway Station still lacks adequate security measures

Guwahati, December 2, 2018:

The Guwahati Railway Station despite being one of the busiest as well as major railway stations in the entire region still lacks some major security facilities such as proper functioning baggage scanners, walk through metal detectors and manpower.

Although after the explosion that took place in a train in Udalguri, the Government Railway Police (GRP), Railway Police Force (RPF) and other railways staff increased their vigil on the passengers at the railway station, they still face a lot of problems in their functioning.

Utpal Das, OC, GRPS, said, “After the explosion in the train, we increased our vigil in all the gates in order to tackle all the potential threats. We are working day and night to track each and every suspected person.”

However, speaking on the security issues, a source said that the railway station lacks major security features except for the CCTV cameras. The baggage scanner which is operated by the RPF has been lying idle for the past several months due to technical failure but till now no steps have been taken to repair it. Apart from this, some of the walk through metal detectors do not function properly as well.

Not just non-functioning security systems, the railway station personnel have a shortage of manpower as well.

Utpal Das informed that in a shift of 8 hours, there are only 45 personnel.

Another source said that the number of people deployed in the shifts are not sufficient for the railway station as it deals with more that 20 thousand passengers a day. Even the random checks by the RPF on certain trains are not sufficient as the number of personnel deployed is too little. Some personnel do not even get enough time to thoroughly check some trains as they are stationed only for a few minutes.

The source further said that another major problem for the security of the people are the open railway platforms in the station. It is a major threat as these areas are completely open but with the limited manpower, it is not possible to track each “backdoor” entry.

It is not just the Guwahati Railway Station that has such issue, almost all the station in the NFR regions have such security issues.

It may be mentioned that on Saturday at least three people were severely injured after an explosion took place at an intercity express train in Udalguri of Assam.

NFR Spokesperson Nripen Bhattacharya speaking to InsideNE said that the explosion took place in the Kamakhya-Dekargaon Intercity Express which at the time of explosion was at the Harisinga railway station at 7:04 pm.

All the injured persons were taken to a hospital for medical assistance. Railway and police officials are currently on the spot to investigate the matter as to how the explosion took place.

It is yet to be ascertained if the explosion was caused by a grenade, improvised explosive device or some technical failure/issue with the coach’s electrical system. The inquiry by the railway authorities on the explosion issue is still on.

(DMR)