Pune’s railway division faces a surge in chain-pulling and stone-pelting incidents, raising concerns about passenger safety and train operations.
Chain-pulling is a big issue. People do it for all sorts of reasons, like leaving luggage outside or running to grab snacks. But it really messes up train schedules, especially when it’s busy. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has to track down where it happened and who did it, which takes time and delays other trains too. If caught, offenders can face fines or even jail time.
Then there’s the stone-pelting. This year, there have been 57 incidents, a big jump from just 26 last year. Most of these happened on the Pune to Lonavala and Pune to Daund routes. While the RPF has tried to improve safety at hotspots, they’ve only solved about half of the cases.
Pune’s railway division runs over 200 trains daily, and these stone-pelting incidents can be dangerous. Thankfully, most passengers stay safe because of closed doors and windows. Still, there were a couple of minor injuries this year. The RPF has caught some culprits, but there’s still a lot of work to do.
When we tried to get a comment from the new divisional railway manager, he was unavailable. His secretary mentioned he’s still getting settled in and suggested we wait a couple of months for direct communication. So, it looks like we’ll have to keep an eye on this situation for now.