Title - Railway station at Bansal’s hometown lacks safety measures

Multiple unmanned entrances, ill-equipped scanning equipment and lack of adequate security personnel, CCTV cameras and Door Frame Metal Detector (DFMD) expose the utter failure of the authorities in ensuring safety of thousands of passengers who throng everyday to the railway station at the hometown of Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.

Ironically, Chandigarh Railway Station is one of those five railway stations about which the intelligence agencies gave their input that two alleged LeT operatives recced. The five railway stations including Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Pratapgarh and Mirzapur are considered as “Possible threats”.

Chandigarh Railway Station is also considered as VVIPs railway station, because being at the centre of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, hundreds of VVIPs including Union Ministers, State Ministers and MLAs of all three States use this railway station on daily basis. Besides, thousands of passengers come and go to their destination through this station daily.

The Railway station has multiple entrances, one VVIP entrance, second near the parcel branch, third from the Panchkula side besides one main entrance of the station.

Railway authorities have set up only one  Door Frame Metal Detector (DFMD) at the main entrance of the railway station. Rest of the entrances are not only unmanned but also without any DFMD.

A visit at the station suggests that there is no one to keep a check on anyone. Anti-social elements can enter at the station very easily without any hitch, which poses threat not only to VVIPs but also passengers.

Sources said that there are only 32 CCTV cameras for proper surveillance at different places at the station against requirement of 150 CCTV cameras. Even these 32 CCTV cameras are of poor visibility with low pixels.

Now railway authorities have sent a proposal for 100 more CCTV cameras for this station, which are yet to be set up.

Sources said that Government Railway Police (GRP), Haryana and Railway Police Force (RPF) have a strength of 120 police personnel, 60 each who work in shifts of eight hours. At a time, there are 30 police personnel working at the station, which is not enough to tackle any terror threat.