To counter Naxal menace, Rlys to connect trains & stations

Drivers and guards aboard moving trains will soon be able to contact senior Railway officials, including Railway Board members in the capital...

Drivers and guards aboard moving trains will soon be able to contact senior Railway officials, including Railway Board members in the capital, at the touch of a button in case of an emergency. In a bid to tackle the Naxal menace, particularly in secluded areas between two railway stations, the Indian Railways is all set to introduce a new communication system on moving trains.

Implementing the Mobile Train Radio Communication (MTRC) project gathered momentum following the 12-hour siege of a train by Naxalites on March 14 in the Palamu Tiger Reserve forests in Jharkhand.

‘‘Special mobile handsets are being procured for the project from Siemens and Nortel. We plan to cover 2,500 km in the first phase at a total cost of Rs 200 crore,’’ said a senior Railway Board official. Global System for Mobile Communications-Railways (GSM-R), a technology used by railways the world over, is being employed for the project.

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Train operators will be given GSM-R mobile handsets with a red SOS button. Activating the SOS button from a moving train would immediately alert a string of railway stations, control offices and nearby trains of an emergency situation. ‘‘If need be, a locomotive driver would be able to speak directly to the Railway Minister using this system,” said an official.

Currently, drivers on a moving train can contact only the nearest railway station using VHF wireless sets.

‘‘By the end of July, the entire Northeast Frontier Railways and Eastern Railways would be covered. MTRC would be fully-operational between Amritsar and Tinsukhia by December this year,’’ said a Railway Board official. ‘‘Most of the Naxal-affected areas would be covered by the Amritsar-Tinsukhia route,’’ he added.

‘‘MTRC will enable railway officials to contact these moving trains from anywhere too,’’ said a railway official. The ministry also plans to give these mobile handsets to supervisors and track-maintenance officials working mid-section to enable them to report any track damage to the nearest stations or trains.

2 Naxalites killed in Bastar encounter

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RAIPUR: The Chhattisgarh police today gunned down two Naxalites in a dense forest in Narayanpur district of Bastar region of the state. Two landmines and a pressure mine were recovered from the place following the encounter with a group of Naxalites, police said.

The gunbattle between the police team, led by Narayanpur SP Sundar Raj, and the Naxalites took place in Anjarel forest, about 18 km from the district headquarters and about 250 km from Raipur the state capital, IGP (Intelligence) Giridhari Nayak said.

The police party was engaged in search operations when the Maoists opened fire. In the return fire by the police, two Naxalites were killed, Nayak said. Narayanpur is a Naxal-dominated area. Maoists had recently raided the Narayanpur sub-jail and set some of their jailed comrades free.

In the past one year in Bastar region, Naxalites have killed about 300 people after the ‘Salwa Judum’ or peace campaign was launched on June 4 last year against the Naxalites with active support of the state government. — ENS