Safety check

Jamshedpur, March 3: Security measures have been tightened on two Rajdhanis that pass through several Naxalite-prone areas of Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar and Bengal after last week’s rebel strike on trains and rail tracks in the region.

The Railway Protection Force (RPF, Tatanagar) has almost doubled the escort party on both the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi (via Bilaspur) Rajdhani as well as the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express following threats from Maoists.

Jawans from the RPF were escorting the Bhubaneswar-New Delhi Rajdhani Express from Kharagpur and Tatanagar, sources said, adding that sniffer dogs had also been pressed into service to check the air-conditioned compartments. Both the trains run twice a week and touch Tatanagar.

Maoists had threatened to blow up the Rajdhani Express in the run-up to the recent bandh called by them. They blew up railway tracks and torched a station in two separate incidents in Bihar on Saturday, barely 18 hours after they attacked a station on the Jharkhand-Orissa border. The rebels also abducted some railway officials, but released them later.

The RPF was also keeping a watch on the rail route bisecting Koderma and Gaya along the Bihar border, sources added. Sniffer dogs (Labradors) were being requisitioned from Bandamunda (Orissa), as the Dobermans at the disposal of the RPF had been retired.

Usually, around 15 RPF jawans escort the Rajdhani but now their strength had been increased to 30. RPF assistant security commissioner A.C. Das said they started conducting the special security drive after receiving instructions from their headquarters.

Das said the RPF had been asked to be extra alert and intensify security measures on the Rajdhani when it was passing through Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal and Chhattisgarh.

The heavily armed RPF jawans had been asked to check compartments thoroughly and, if necessary, even frisk passengers on board. “We are not taking the threat lightly. We don’t want to compromise on passenger safety. Hence, special security measures have been initiated to avoid any casualty,” a source in the RPF said.

Rail officials said the two trains touched most of the states in the region _ Koderma, Gomoh, Chakradharpur, Sonua and Tatanagar (all Naxalite zones) in Jharkhand, Jharsuguda and Rourkela (Orissa) and Gaya in Bihar.

Apart form these areas, the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express also passed through Bengal.