Post News Network
Rayagada, Sept 26: The Government Railway Police (GRP) station here closes down punctually every night at the stroke of 11, allege locals.
The police station turns into a bedroom for staffers every night and becomes inaccessible for railway passengers post 11 pm, sources said.
GRP officials should be present on the platform whenever a train arrives or leaves, and should provide security to passengers and should be available round-the-clock if any passenger wishes to lodge a complaint.
All this however seems to be lost on GRP officials of Rayagada railway station, as was found out by a group of harried passengers
Friday night.
Some Rourkela-bound passengers were allegedly misbehaved with by a group of unidentified miscreants at the railway station Friday night at 11.15 pm. Some of the passengers then went to the GRP station to seek police help in dealing with the miscreants. However, nobody save one lone staffer was to be found at the police station. This staffer too was deep asleep, with the entrance to the police station closed.
The cabin of the inspector-in-charge was locked. The passengers kept shouting for help, but none was forthcoming, they later said.
Left with no option, the passengers forced their way into the police station through the front door and tried to wake up the lone staffer who was soundly asleep on a table. After 15 minutes of trying to wake the staffer up, the passengers gave up and decided to return to the platform.
They said they were taken aback at the callousness and apathy of the railway police – that too at such a sensitive railway station as Rayagada.
Around 60 trains pass through the station on a daily basis and the station receives a daily footfall of more than 5,000 passengers.
With the GRP not properly discharging its responsibilities, passengers have been left high and dry, allege locals.
The station was in the news just two months back for similar reasons. The inspector-in-charge Suresh Chandra Nayak had reprimanded an official on duty and warned him not to repeat the act.
