RailEnquiry

Nainital : Following the initiatives taken by the Indian Railways, the police has chalked out a strategy to deal with the increasing instances of passengers being duped after being made to consume eatables or drinks laced with drugs.Talking to the mediapersons during a visit to Nainital, DGP Vijay Raghav Pant had told his subordinates to get in touch with the officials of the Transport Department on the issue. The idea is to get the conductors in buses to announce to the passengers at the beginning of the journey to be careful of unknown people and not to accept any eatables and drinks from them during the travel.“We will definitely take up this matter with the transport authorities. Apart from the conductors telling the passengers, similar announcements can also be made with the public address system at various bus stations also,” he said, while pointing that generating awareness amongst the common people is the best way of dealing with the menace.Pant said a similar exercise was being carried out by the Railways successfully at various railway stations where frequent announcements are made on the platforms to this effect.Besides making announcements, the police also plans to get stickers and posters printed and put up at various public places asking passengers to beware of unknown persons asking them to join them over a cup of tea, cold drink or snacks.

Pant further stated that the police authorities in the state are also taking up the matter with their counterparts in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh. In most of the instances it has been found that the victim is drugged at one place and comes to know of his losses at another after regaining consciousness. Hence, very often the crime is committed in one state and reported in another, which leads to certain functional problems.

Incidents of people being duped after having consumed eatables or drinks with unknown people while on way to their destinations while being rendered unconscious are being reported on a daily basis in the region. Very often the victims are poor labourers returning home with the money that they earn while being employed outside the state. The incidents have come to be known as zaharkhurani.