Delhi Police writes to metro to take measures to prevent security breach, suicides

New Delhi, Aug 30 (PTI) The Delhi Police has written a letter to the DMRC to prevent security breaches and suicides on the premises, official sources said on Friday.

Police in the letter urged the transporter to keep an eye on five points — CCTV cameras on the railway tracks, lighting of dark spots, cutting the branches of trees at the metro station boundaries, increasing the number of guards at the platforms and other metro premises and installing platform screen doors (PSD) at the stations, sources said.

The letter cited two cases of two cases of ‘mysterious’ graffiti on train coaches parked at Yamuna Bank yard and near Shahdara metro station in east Delhi in March and April, this year.

The suspects in these cases had allegedly breached the Yamuna Bank Metro Yard and Shahdara Metro stations to paint the wagons parked at the tracks in mid-night. Wagons were found to be painted with multiple colour spray and words like ‘Demo’ and ‘AAA’, were written on them.

The Delhi Police had registered an FIR but they are yet to nab the suspects as no one was caught in any of the CCTV cameras installed in the periphery of the metro.

A team of Delhi Police had also visited Kerala, Gujarat and West Bengal, where similar cases have been reported in the past few years. In these cases, some foreign nationals were found to be involved but got no lead in the national capital, officials sources said.

According to the sources, the Delhi Police has observed that cable thefts from the metro tracks are also common. A few days ago, services at four metro stations were affected due to theft of the signalling cables at Jhilmil Metro Station in northeast Delhi.

Sources said that over 200 cases of cable thefts from the metro tracks and premises have been reported in the past four years.

An officer, who did not wish to be named, said that installing CCTV cameras on the metro tracks and lighting the dark spots could lead to better results.

He said in one of the cases of graffiti on wagons, it was suspected that perpetrators had climbed on a tree to reach the train parked on the tracks.

In July this year, Delhi Police wrote a letter to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation requesting them to install platform screen doors at the remaining 120 metro stations against the backdrop of the increased number suicide cases.

The police sources said that out of 190 metro stations in Delhi, only 70 have such doors that are helpful in preventing suicides.