5 Held After RPF Official Attacked During Impromptu Protest by EMU Passengers : CHENNAI: Five passengers including four women were arrested for attacking railway police personnel after a delay in a Ponneri-Chennai Central suburban EMU led to a series of protests that held up rail traffic for over an hour and half at Basin Bridge on Friday morning. Sequence of events: 1) Passengers on Ponneri-Chennai Central EMU, which was stalled at Basin Bridge station for more than 10 minutes, stage a protest for an hour from 9:15 AM. 2) Station Master steps in to pacify and issues an apology letter. Train moves 3) By then, the schedule a number of trains on both routes, including passenger trains, goes haywire. 4) At around 10 AM, passengers on Arakkonam-Central EMU at Basin Bridge junction stage rail roko. Get into a scuffle with RPF and GRP officials 5) 5 protestors arrested by GRP under 4 sections including criminal intimidation and sent to Puzhal prison, police said. While delays are a daily inconvenience for the passengers on the suburban line, what triggered the outburst today was the decision to let the EMU on Arakkonam line pass at around 9.15 AM. Angry commuters squatted on the rail tracks in protest that lasted for nearly an hour, following which the station master of Basin Bridge stepped in the pacify the irate people. He even issued an apology letter. However, this had led to a disruption on both lines which sent the schedule haywire. This prompted those on the EMU from Arakkonam to stage another protest which worsened the situation. A railway official making his way to Central recounted that his EMU train was stuck between Vyasarpadi station and Basin Bridge for more than an hour. Many passengers were seen getting out of long distance trains that were stopped on the tracks at various places on the route and walking on the rail tracks with luggage to reach the main road. The agitated passengers refused to pay heed to Railway Protection Force and Government Railway Police personnel, and instead entered into a heated argument with the officials. Police officials said N Azhagarsamy, RPF inspector at Chennai Central, was pushed around and abused by the enraged commuters, which led to the arrest of the five. According to many railway officials that Express spoke to, the root cause of the issue lay in frequent complaints of delayed arrival of EMU trains on the heavily congested Ponneri-Central route. Suburban trains on the route, which has only two lines unlike four on the Central- Arakkonam line, have to compete with many a long distance daily express trains like Navjivan Express and Coromandel Express and hence are constantly delayed, most often at Basin Bridge junction. Only two months ago there were similar protests when around 30 protesters, including a woman passenger who was arrested on Friday, had sat in front of the Central Station Managers office, demanding an explanation. In that incident as was the case today, fire- fighting with enraged commuters was left to the RPF officials. The continued delays is actually a technical issue that should be handled by technical personnel and senior officials of Southern Railway, said an RPF staffer, requesting anonymity. Incidentally, the protests and arrests happened on the day an entire battalion of Southern Railway Head of Departments (HODs) accompanied General Manager Rakesh Misra on a full day inspection of the Gummidipoondi-Central route just few minutes before the protests erupted at Basin Bridge. Calls to the Divisional Railway Manager of Chennai, PK Mishra, went unanswered. The five passengers have been arrested and booked for criminal intimidation (IPC 506(1)), using obscene language (IPC 294B), voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty (IPC 332) and squatting on railway track (Railways Act 174A) and have been remanded for 15 days to the Puzhal prison. The maximum sentence could be imprisonment up to three years, a police official said. - EXPRESS NEWS | 18.10.2014°
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 00:00:38 +0000
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