RailEnquiry

MUMBAI: The mystery man behind the serial tampering of junction boxes that brought Central Railway suburban trains to a grinding halt over the past three weeks has turned out to be a 15-year-old boy from a Ghatkopar slum.The Railway Protection Force (RPF) caught the boy after another incident of tampering on Monday. The incident happened around 3 pm between Kalyan and Thakurli, and the boy found sitting in the train compartment even after the affected local had left for the yard.A resident of Ramabai Nagar in Ghatkopar, the boy was produced before the juvenile justice board, Bhiwandi, on Tuesday. He was charged under the Railway Act and fined Rs 800."The boy used to loiter about the stretch where the problems were occurring and did such acts for fun," senior divisional security commissioner, RPF, Alok Bohra said. "He even confessed to having attempted chain-pulling to halt a train. When he noticed that the train did not stop between stations even after pulling the chain, he began tampering with the electrical fittings in the junction box."

The CR had first suspected a disgruntled employee. The CR was forced to cancel as many as 12 services on each of the four occasion when the rake had to withdrawn from service due to tampering with cables in the rake.

The CR now wants to secure the junction box in train compartments with additional protection.