NEW DELHI: The RPF arrested over 45,000 people for chain-pulling and over 400 for hurling stones at trains, which resulted in unnecessary delays and inconvenienced passengers in 2019, a senior official of the force said on Tuesday.While the number of incidents reported in 2019 was 55,373, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) arrested 45,784 people and prosecuted 43,951, he said, adding that the incidents of chain-pulling affected 46,223 trains in the said period.More than 1,000 trains were pelted with stones during this period, while 659 cases were registered and 404 people arrested in this regard, the official said."We have deployed additional forces at the places where chain-pulling and stone pelting were most prevalent. Since May 2019, we have seen that the number of chain-pulling incidents has come down."In case of stone pelting, we have sensitised people and those cases have also reduced," RPF DG Arun Kumar said.Official RPF data also said its security helpline number 182, which is operational 24x7 for 365 days to address the security-related grievances of passengers in distress, received 60,453 calls and attended to 31,851 complaints received on Twitter in 2019.The RPF also conducted 1,57,354 ticket-checking drives, arrested 54,15,739 people and recovered Rs 2,15,65,53,964 last year."To facilitate a safe and comfortable journey for women passengers, besides the regular drives, special drives were also carried out to restrict the entry of male passengers in the coaches reserved for ladies."As many as 5,938 drives were conducted, 7,151 people arrested and a total amount of Rs 6,85,890 was recovered in fines from them," Kumar said.According to data, the RPF rescued 446 children from the clutches of human-traffickers and arrested 68 people in connection with these incidents in 2019, he added.Besides, 16,011 children (run away, drug addicts, destitute, kidnapped, left behind, missing etc.) were rescued last year, taking the total figure of the children rescued by the force to 16,457, Kumar said.The RPF dealt with 13,204 cases of luggage left behind by passengers, valued at around Rs 48,58,18,444, and handed those over to the owners in 2019, he said, adding that the top-performing zones were — Southern Railway (2,423 cases valued at Rs 2.98 crore), South Central Railway (1,704 cases valued at Rs 3.35 crore) and Western Railway (1,386 cases valued at Rs 3.14 crore).The force also dealt with coal and petroleum theft, with 444 and 56 people arrested in such cases respectively.The RPF, which was empowered to make seizures and arrests under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in April 2019, made 427 arrests and recovered a total amount of Rs 12,83,65,031 under the law last year, Kumar said.