Security breached @ city railway station.

Security breached @ city railway station. Our reporter walks through...

Every day, 1.5 lakh passengers use the City Railway Station. While the major entry points are heavily guarded, we discovered that there are at least four places through which anybody can sneak into the platforms and, say, plant an explosive device. In the light of the Delhi blasts, this is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

By Debi Prasad Sarangi
Posted On Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Bombs seem to go off every other day in some Indian metro or the other and the paranoia among the public is only understandable. Meanwhile, the government and the authorities, including the police, keep harping on how they are doing their best to anticipate and preclude terrorist strikes.

The official spiel is meant to reassure. “We have taken all safety measures to avoid any untoward incidents... all due diligence is being exercised” is one template statement. But do they?

Bangalore Mirror, with the explicit intention of checking the precautions in place, did a sting operation to deduce how stringent these rules are really. And we decided to investigate the most vulnerable and easy entry points of Bangalore — the main railway station.

The Bangalore City Railway Station has three entry points, the main entry, one from Okalipuram side and the Comesum eatery entry point. The better part is that all three of them are heavily guarded by security personnel and metal detectors.

However, what should shock us is that there are at least four unauthorised entry points through which anybody can enter the platforms, carrying any damn thing at all, with not a soul to conduct any checks.
Here’s a blow-by-blow account of how I went about the sting operation.

MONDAY NIGHT
9.23 pm I entered the station premises through the Goodshed road gate. Though I saw one RPF jawan he did not bother to frisk me. And I simply started walking towards platform number one.

9.30 pm Reached platform number one and came out through the path adjacent to Comesum food joint. I saw just one RPF jawan armed with a lathi, no CCTV, no security.

TUESDAY
12:15 pm Went into the station through gate one and two. Maximum security arrangements were there. To get an idea of the security system at Okalipuram gate, I started walking on the platform and then the railway tracks. There were some RPSF (Railway Protection Special Force) gun-men checking passengers with the help of door-frame metal detector at the comparatively less crowded Okalipuram gate.

12:35 pm Started walking on platform number five and went upto platform number ten.

12:42 pm I again entered the station from Magadi Road gate, adjacent to platform number ten. Did not see a single security person on
the way.

01.05 pm This time I tried to get into the station by a narrow path, which is behind Railway Divisional Office. And this time also I easily went upto platform number one. Though I saw some RPF men, they didn’t as much look in my direction.

PERSONNEL CRUNCH
The Railway Protection Force officials blame it on staff shortage. According to them, the RPF(Bangalore Division) has only 480 personnel whereas, the number has to be doubled immediately. Stations like Hindupur (Andhra Pradesh), Bangalore East, Bangarpet, Bangalore City Station, Yeshwantpur and Cantonment come under the Bangalore division. “We need at least 150 RPF officials for the City Railway junction, but presently we are managing with 85 only,” one of the officials said.

“Currently we have received one company of Railway Protection Special Force (50 men) and we are trying to get more to beef up the security in all stations under our division,” sources said.

TOO MUCH WORK?
Apart from personnel, the department is also facing shortage of sniffer dogs and tracker dogs. Presently there are four sniffer dogs and one tracker dog in the department. “With increasing security related problems, we need the number of dogs to be doubled,” sources in the department said.

However, officials say that its not easy to frisk each and every passenger as its a hectic task and passengers might not cooperate. “But still our jawans check whomever they find suspicious,” they added.

It’s not only the higher authorities but jawans too who hold this view. “Due to accute staff shortage, sometimes we have to work under tremendous pressure, which is really very hectic and depressing,” one of the jawans deployed at the station said.

The man at the helm of affairs, Akhil Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager, South Western Railways said, “I am not aware of any staff shortage.’’

For the record, a whopping 1.5 lakh passengers use the Bangalore City Railway station. What we discovered and have narrated shouldn’t be of any consolation to them!