Mumbai, December 29: If you’re looking to pick holes in preparedness against terror attacks, look no further than the suburban railway system in Mumbai, used by around seven million commuters daily. Railway authorities had promised to form a bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) in 2009 after the terror attack at CST on November 26, 2008. But since the plan is yet to see the light of day, it looks like few lessons have been learnt from terror attacks in the past, like the serial blasts which ripped through running local trains in 2006, killing 188 commuters, besides the 26/11 attack.
Sources said the government had asked the railway protection force (RPF), which is in charge of railways security, to form a BDDS. It assurance thereafter, though, appears more to be mere lip service.
While the Central Railway’s personnel are not well-equipped, the Western Railway has equipment but no personnel to form a bomb squad. The RPF, therefore, has to depend on the BDDS of the Mumbai police.
PC Sinha, senior divisional security commandant, RPF, Central Railway, said, “The Central Railway headquarters at CST will finalise the tender for purchasing sophisticated equipment for a BDDS in the next two months. In the intervening time, we will start training our men to handle BDDS equipment and we will have a separate, full-fledged BDDS team to protect railway commuters and railway property in the next three to four months.”
The railways plan to acquire multi-crore-rupee hi-tech security equipment, including night vision cameras, Internet-based security surveillance, vapour detectors and bomb baskets to protect commuters.
——Agencies