Vasco railway station, which is one the busy railways stations in the state and acts as an important gateways to Goa, is yet to have proper security system in place.
The current state of affairs at the station is rather alarming and it would not be wrong to say that all and sundry can walk into the station at any time without much ado. What’s more, some of the security personnel manning the railway station can often be seen busy on their cell phones at during major part of their duty hours.
On several occasions efforts have been made by Herald to objectively interpret the security situation at the railway station, which is used by hundreds of passengers everyday. Ironically, not much has changed and the ground reality remains the same, as security personnel merely conduct the formalities of security checks at the entrances without any metal detectors or other security gadgets. Keeping these factors in mind it would not be difficult to ascertain that the existing security at this railway station could merely be sitting ducks and easy targets in the advent of attacks from for anti-social or terror outfits.
The ground checks at this major railway station conducted by the Herald investigation team on the New Year day too revealed that nothing much had changed and the situation remained as fluid as earlier. Though officially Goa police is supposed to be on the alert considering the high number of tourists arriving in the state, especially during the New Year celebrations, on ground zero even the senior railway officials do not hesitate to point out that security is not taken seriously at the station and the efforts are well below par.
Officially the station area is manned jointly by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel and Vasco Railway Police. One can notice that police intensify their vigil at the station only when trains leave or arrive at the station and the rest of the time they often can be seen letting down their guard and are seen relaxing on their chair or at the barrack area.
Interestingly, frequent reports by media highlighting the poor security conditions and the availability of numerous access points to get to the platforms, have not been taken too seriously and the status quo seems to be devoid of required alacrity. In fact, the laziness is so evident that no attempts to either block the entry or exit points have been made, despite several publications (including Herald) pointing it out on several occasions.
The deterioration of efforts can be gauged by the fact that the door frame metal detector, installed at the main entrance, which was removed few months ago citing repairs has not been replaced yet.
To make matters worse, the second entry and exit point, which is located near the current ticket booking office, has no metal detectors, which simply means that anyone can enter or exit at any time they please.
Though there are standing instructions from senior police officials to enhance security and effectively man the entry and exit at the station by maintaining a round the clock vigil, the reality is that at both the entry and exit points, besides other points which are used to gain access into the station still remain porous points is a major questions.
In a recent case, the Vasco railway police nabbed two tourists with 95 bottles of liquor. Similarly a train thief was caught by them for which they were subsequently rewarded. However, it’s an open secret that rampant smuggling of liquor through trains via Vasco railway station continues unabated and yet during the last one year police have managed to book only very few cases.
“Alertness of police is more important that availability of DFMD, but I don’t see then alert on daily basis. What I have seen is that the whenever they are deployed here at the railway station, they are mostly seen busy with their mobile phones. Though the railways pay about 50 per cent of the salary amount to the Goa police for providing security at the railway station but I don’t think that security from Goa police is up to the mark,” a senior railway official told Herald.
Officially, Goa police have banned use of mobile phones among its personnel while on field duty, except to attend official calls as the use of mobile phones by their personnel diverts attention from duty. Needless to say, seeing the security officials busy on their cell phones one can only say that they have scant regard to directions and orders. Obviously they seem to be putting personal needs before duty, which can be hazardous, specially when they are being paid to be alert and in case of eventuality public lives are at stake.
Citizens hope things will improve and Goa police will not wait for a tragedy to happen, to get their act together.
