HYDERABAD: Seven women from crime prevention team (CPT) of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), have been carrying out the Herculean task of ensuring safety and protection of women passengers travelling in heavily crowded MMTS trains everyday.
The team members, led by sub-inspector V. Pragna, dressed in mufti are on vigil while keeping a watch on over 500 passengers. They all are trained to spot a crime that is happening and arrest the perpetrator. They can knock down well-built trouble-makers within seconds if necessary.
The CPT, also referred as Rudramma CPT, was formed on September 22 last year to especially control crime against women.
A significant development has been that since the time the team was formed, the crime rate against women passengers in MMTS has dropped drastically, sources in CPT said.
Over 63 habitual criminals involved in crime against women in MMTS trains have been detected by Rudramma-CPT teams, a senior RPF officer said.
Now even passengers feel secure to travel alone as they are protected by the officers during their journey.
“I always travel alone in the women’s compartment of MMTS. In the first week of January, an unidentified drunk entered our compartment, sat beside me and tried to sexually abuse me. It was late in the night when I and seven more women were returning from Lingampally. When I tried to dial 100, the man snatched my mobile. I was really scared,” G. Sandhya, a software employee said.
“I noticed one of the female passengers was shooting the entire episode while six others grabbed the man by his collar and put him down,” Sandhya said.
One of them disclosed that they were from railway police and gave her mobile number, she said.
During the arrest a CPT constable Jyoti Sureh suffered injuries.
“All of us have body-worn cameras and we always carry fibre lathis in our backpacks,” V. Pragna said.
“We interact with each and every women passenger, introduce ourselves and add them in our Mytras WhatsApp group so that they can report to us about violence in or out of trains. Within seconds our team responds and reaches the spot,” the SI said.
The most common cases in MMTS trains are theft of bags, sexual abuse and chain snatching.
The CPT Nagamma teams pretend to be passengers and keep a watch in the compartments
Last month, when we were posted in Secunderabad railway station waiting room, we noticed a criminal, who covered himself with a blanket, slept beside a woman passenger and tried to sexually assault her. We immediately alerted my superiors and the accused K Vamsi was nabbed, T. Hemalatha, a constable said.
Mobile thief Laxman Rao was arrested when he tried to escape with a smartphone from the charging point while leaving his cheap instrument
…
