No 'zeharkhurani' incidents on Holi due to tight vigil: North Central Railways

ALLAHABAD: The North Central Railways did not witnessed even a single case of 'zeharkhurani' (poisoning the fellow passengers by criminals on board trains by befriending them and feeding them eatables laced with poison) from stations coming under its jurisdiction during Holi this year. The railway authorities attributed this achievement to tight vigil and efficient crowd management.
Apart from this, NCR has also increased the revenue generated by catching ticketless passengers on Holi which was 28% more than the last year, for the same occasion.

According to the CPRO (chief public relation officer) of NCR, GK Bansal, GM NCR, MC Chauhan had instructed the authorities to the extra vigilant in terms of checking the cases of zeharkhurani, which usually register an increase during the Holi season as several trains run jam packed with the passengers, especially those coming from Delhi and Mumbai.

“As the instructions of the GM was followed in letter and spirit, there have been zero cases of ‘Zeharkhurani’ of passengers despite the fact that there was a quantum jump in number of passengers traveling in trains during festive times”, said Bansal.

The strict vigil and effective crowd management ensured that no unusual incident happened in NCR in general and in Allahabad in particular, he added.

The enhanced level of vigil is also reflected in the data of ticket checking earnings of Allahabad division on the day of Holi, i.e. March 2, says the CPRO. “When compared to the day of Holi in 2017, (March 13, 2017), this year, the earnings from ticket checking on the day of the festival have been 28.04% higher. This figure illustrates and supports the fact that enhanced vigil was kept on the festival and ticketless travel was curbed to prevent any discomfort to the ticketed passengers”, he added.

Curbing of ticketless travel has also helped to enhance the security on trains and station premises and create synergy with the efforts of the RPF in this sphere.

In order to give travelling space to the large number of passengers coming to/returning from their homes on the festival, special trains have been run with as many as 19 special trains passing through NCR, which have considerably eased the pressure on the regular services on the festival.