Midnight mopping helps cops make CSMT safe

MUMBAI: Around 1.30 am every day, a small army of conservancy workers takes over the main concourse at CSMT, pushing their mops and operating scrubbing machines to clean the floor. This is no attempt to be a part of the Swachh Bharat campaign but an ingenious idea by the railway police to stop criminals from accessing the main concourse at night.
Two child kidnappings were reported from CSMT in the past couple of months; they were later found unharmed. The police don’t want to take any chances. While workers are busy mopping the floor, the police segregate passengers, waiting for long-distance trains to arrive, from those who hang around needlessly and pack off the latter. Officials said this is also helping them control crimes such as pickpocketing, mobile theft and bag theft.

On November 5, a homemaker from Nalasopara, Parvati Vishwakarma, landed up at CSMT following a fight with her husband over not having children. Police said she had made up her mind to abduct a child from a sleeping family. She wandered around the station for some time before picking up two-year-old Sunny Satdive sleeping near his mother, Vimla. She then took a cab to Churchgate and requested a security person to buy a ticket for Nalasopara for her. The police made inquiries with nearly 600 auto drivers in Nalasopara before nabbing her within 24 hours.

In a separate case on September 27, a Diva woman, who was speech challenged, kidnapped the daughter of a speech challenged couple while they were asleep at the terminus. Kajal Khan, the accused, had plans to kill the two-year-old child. But after assaulting her, she let go off the child at Thane where police found her. Investigations revealed that Khan used to have an affair with the child's father and was having disputes with the couple thereafter. Both cases occurred close to midnight.

“The main concourse at CSMT takes a different look at night. Families that have bought unreserved tickets arrive several hours before the train's scheduled departure to queue up for it,” said a police officer. Male members may take turns to stand in queue while women and children take a nap. Then there are passengers who have concluded one leg of their journey and are waiting to travel further to another location. But there are many unwelcome visitors as well such as homeless people, beggars or those wanting to make a quick buck by committing crimes. Uniformed GRP and RPF personnel make frequent rounds to drive away those hanging around needlessly but they keep coming back.

“Whenever possible, we request ticket checkers to go around and examine tickets to identify genuine passengers. Lately, we hit upon an idea to keep off troublemakers from the terminus at night. Conservancy workers are roped in to clean the premises. The mopping process and wet floor keeps people away from the main concourse for a good three to four hours until it’s daybreak. During this time, passengers with children or with luggage are accommodated on chairs and the rest are driven away,” said the officer.

“The GRP also makes rounds of waiting areas and alerts passengers charging their phones to keep and eye on their gadgets and bags,” said senior inspector CSMT GRP, Hemant Bavdhankar.