THRISSUR:It seems the Southern Railway, especially the Thiruvananthapuram division, is waiting for another disaster to act in Kerala where as many as a dozen sabotage attempts have been identified to derail the train services in the state by placing boulders and logs on railway track in the recent past.
Saddeningly, not a single person was booked in connection with such incidents so far.
Even after a sharp rise in such attempts have been identified in the recent past, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the State police are at loggerheads over who should investigate the case.
When contacted, divisional security commissioner, RPF, Rajnish Kumar Tripathi said after each incident the RPF used to inform or direct the local police to register cases and book the culprits as such cases are completely under their purview.
While braving into a crosscheck on the issue, it is evident that as many as three such cases were registered during the last month, one in Thrissur and two in Kozhikode by the local police, but no one has been booked so far, said Tripathi, admitting that there has been a steady rise in such incidents including stone pelting in Kerala.
The state police, however, are of the view that in case of incidents taking place at railway stations or on tracks, they are bound by certain limitations.
First of all, the police have to seek for the support of the Railways.
They have to approach higher officials in Railways for permission to conduct investigation at places under their jurisdiction, which is in fact delaying the cases.
In the latest incident, according to reports, a concrete slab was kept on the railway track near Puthukkad railway station in Thrissur a couple of weeks ago, and the Mumbai-Kanyakumari Jayanthi Janata Express ran over it, breaking it into pieces.
A case was registered by the local police in the case but the investigation has reached nowhere.
The same has happened in the suspected train sabotage attempt in Kozhikode, where unidentified miscreants placed a six-metre steel rod across the railway track at Kundayithodu, near Cheruvannur, in January.
A couple of weeks before the incident, the track was drilled by anonymous persons with an intention to make cracks and thus derail the trains in the same region.
But no one was arrested in connection with this case too, Tripathi said, adding that he would take up the matter with the Director General of Police.
While the railway and state police maintain that the miscreants should sternly be dealt with by booking them under the RA and IPC and there should not be any leniency on them, it remains to be seen who should crack the whip, or will they wait for another disaster to goad them into action, asked curious rail passengers.