New Delhi, Jan 14 (PTI) The Delhi High Court has orderedan assessment of the Delhi Metro's standard operatingprocedures (SOPs) in the event of someone going missing fromits stations, to see if these were being actually implemented.
The direction for an audit of the SOPs was given by abench of justices Vipin Sanghi and P S Teji to a court-appointed committee which was set up in July last year toframe guidelines to prevent incidents of people going missingwhile travelling on the metro.
The committee was set up after a mentally-challenged 19-year-old woman went missing from a metro station on April 21last year while travelling with her family.
She had failed to get down at the Jahangirpur MetroStation with her family and according to the CCTV camerafootage of the next station, she got down and exited thestation after 'tailgating' another passenger.
She was missing for nearly three months and on July 17,2017 was found wandering in Rewari district of Haryana by apoliceman who took her to a child welfare committee.
The order for an assessment of the SOPs was given bythe court after advocate Rahul Mehra, appearing for DelhiPolice, said that while procedures say that the exit gateshave to be manned, it was not being done due to shortage ofCentral Industrial Reserve Force (CISF) personnel.
The CISF told the court that it has written to thecentral government asking for more manpower and itsrequisition was under consideration. It said that the exitgates were being manned by private guards at present.
The court has asked the committee to file a report afterassessing the implementation of the SOPs.
It said the report would contain reasons for any non-implementation and the timeline within which the SOPs would befully functional.
With the direction, the bench listed the matter forfurther hearing on February 12.
The court had earlier lambasted DMRC for not putting inplace a system to ensure safe and secure travel of commuters,especially women and children. PTI HMP PPS SKVZMN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.