india

Updated: Apr 03, 2019 17:25 IST

Special patrolling squad equipped with action camera and heavy duty camcorders would now guard country’s first semi-high speed train—Vande Bharat Express. The initiative is a part of security beef up exercise which the Railway Protection Force (RPF) has launched to keep a check on the incidents of stone pelting on the train, which has now become quite frequent.

“Initially, there used to be a regular patrolling squad. But now we have replaced the squad with the one armed with action camera and camcorders in order to capture the images of those engaged in the illegal act of stone pelting on the newly introduced train so that they could be identified and punished,” said Amresh Kumar, senior divisional security commissioner RPF, Allahabad.

So far, the train has been subjected to stone pelting around 6 times, suggests record with the Railways. On December 20, 2018, during the trial run, the train was subjected to stone pelting for the first time. It was followed by another incident that was reported in February when the train was attacked by the stone pelters during its trial run in West UP. Similarly in March, some people pelted stone on the train while it was on Kanpur-Prayagraj route. It was followed by other incidents as well.

Kumar said of the six incidents of stone pelting, four were reported under their jurisdiction. “It was after that we decided to depute special squad onboard Vande Bharat Express,” he said. “We have directed the squad to set the camera on video recording mode on either side of the train, soon after the train leaves Ghaziabad and heads towards Prayagraj, which is our section,” he added.