RailEnquiry

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At the end of the day at Churchgate station when crowd gets thin And the last set of commuters rush to words the last train back home there are people who roll out the blankets on the premises of the station to call their day off. Do not mistake them as homeless; in fact they are uniformed men who prepare themselves to take rest before they get into another day of hardship.

Government Railway police personal said , "We guard the ladies compartment in the early morning trains therefore we have two stay in the night and sleep here itself. As this can be called as a short break in our duty; therefore we utilise this time to get some sleep."

As per the GRP schedule these police officers guards three ladies compartments of the suurban local trains that run from 9 PM to 6 AM. However these men feel that spending the night at a station is the most appropriate time of their hours of duty. After the departure of the last train the gates surrounding the stations are closed and homeless are cleared from the station premises leaving behind only policemen on the station. The only complain by these policemen are that despite being government servant they are not provided rooms to take rest.

In case of emergency at outside the station they have to be on their guard to look after any public safety issue.

A senior GRP official said, “Currently, they have no other place to sleep. Since they have to take the early morning train, they sleep at the station. If they are away from the station, they might miss the train and it will cause them a lot of trouble.”