Muzaffarpur, March 4: Government Railway Police (GRP) have stepped up security to safeguard passengers from falling prey to drugging gangs on trains, particularly during the run-up to Holi.

The additional director-general of police (railway), Paras Nath Rai, who was here recently, mulled the measures during discussions with senior railway authorities to check the menace.

Plainclothes policemen will capture passengers, who start their journey from Mumbai, New Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Yeshvantpur, Surat and Calcutta, on video. Many labourers from Bihar return to their native villages to celebrate Holi.

The Bihar GRP have also held talks with their counterparts in Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra and Gujarat to introduce the measures. Muzaffarpur superintendent of railway police Shiv Kumar Jha told The Telegraph that the GRP personnel, deployed on trains, would patrol to identify gangs and their modus operandi.

Twenty-one alleged Maoists today surrendered before divisional commissioner (Tirhut) S.K. Negi and inspector-general of police (Muzaffarpur zone) Gupteshwar Pandey on Zila School grounds. Police had organised a public meet-cum-Holi Milan where the rebels surrendered their firearms. The rebels from Katra, Gaighat and Benibad areas of the district surrendered 30 firearms, including country-made guns, revolvers and pistols.