RAILWAY SAMACHAR

RLY EMPLOYEE DIES : LOCALS AGITATED

SILIGURI : A section of railway employees staged a demonstration at New Jalpaiguri station after a rail guard, ML Das, died due to the alleged negligence of railway doctors and the local railway hospital authorities. He hadput up at a rest room for railway employees, near New Jalpaiguri station. He waslying unconscious when locals spotted him. The local railway hospitalauthorities were informed but by the time the doctors reached there, Das wasalready dead. Locals also staged a demonstration at the station for a couple ofhours. But the train services were not disrupted.

WCR : TRAIN FACILITY IMPROVES

Bhopal : The number of trains, whether starting from Bhopal or passing through it, haveconsiderably increased. Habibganj station in New Bhopal is being developed withall modern facilities. However, the facility for going towards East, mainly Kolkata, is still not up to the mark in comparison to other directions. For theeast direction, most of the trains pass through Itarsi. The people of Bhopalhave to reach Itarsi for these trains. The trains towards Indore or from Indorepass through old Bhopal station. It does not pass through Habibganj. Due tothis, half of the residents of Bhopal cannot avail the benefit of these trains.There should be a local train of two or three bogies between Bhopal and Habibganj stations every one or two hours during day and night. This small trainwould give much relief for the people. The fare of auto and mini-bus for afamily between these stations comes out to nearly Rs 100. A new railway line hasbeen laid between Bina andItarsi. It would cater mainly for movement of the goods trains. The capitalcity is expanding at a fast pace. Its total population has now gone up to nearly20 lakhs. There has been a project of metro rail for the city like Ludhiana in Punjab and Kochi of Kerala. Bhopal and Indore are fast-growing cities so runningof a metro is being considered seriously. Earlier, London based model of metrotrain, which run underground were favoured. But, Japan successfully ran themetro train above the land. Whereas it is too costly to lay underground track, in comparison to laying down of tracks above the ground by making fly- overs. This also does not necessitate acquisition of land.

THREAT CALL TO MEERUT, SECURITY AT AMBALA STN. BEEFD

Ambala : Security at Ambala Cantonment station has been beefed up in thewake of letters and calls threatening to kill GRP SP Bharati Arora and to blowup railway stations in Punjab.Taking action on the complaint of SP Arora, the Ambala police have traced andidentified the call to the Sim of Sarfaraz alias Siraj, a resident of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. However, the Police which went to Meerut to investigate the matter claimed thata brother-in-law of Siraj had made the call posing as a member of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and threatened the SP saying that if she didn't wind up theinvestigation into Samjhauta Express bomb blast incident, she would be done todeath.He allegedlly wanted to get Siraj involved in a terrorist case out of vengeance and had also made threatening calls to four businessmen of Delhi for ransom. The businessmen included a cloth merchant, a jeweller and two businessmen from Geeta colony. He claimed to be a ''sharpshooter'' of notorious gangster Babloo Srivastava. Meanwhile, the security has been revamped in view of the threatening. The callswere received at sensitive stations of Punjab, Chandigarh and Ambala besides the GRP SP. According to GRP sources, the strength of home guards and railway wardens had been increased to assist the GRP personnel in view of the Republic Day. The Army has also been alerted in the cantonment area. Barricades have beenerected to check the persons entering the military area. The RPF and GRP were jointly screening every nook and corner of Ambala Cantonment station in the wake of threats. Today, the forces conducted inspection of abut a dozen express trains at thestation here.