The Kerala high court has registered a suo motu case over a woman passenger having to jump off a train to escape robbery and rape. Considering the case, Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas asked the state government and railway authorities to consider measures to ensure safety of passengers, including installation of emergency ‘red buttons’ in each train compartment.
The state police chief and principal chief security commissioner of Southern Railway should hold a meeting and suggest measures for ensuring safe travel of rail passengers in Kerala and it should be informed to the court, the bench directed. The principal chief security commissioner (PCSC) of Southern Railway was made a party in the case by the court.
Senior public prosecutor Suman Chakravarthy had submitted that a ‘red button system’, by which a passenger in distress can directly communicate to the guard or to the control room by pushing a button installed in each coach, is required and it is the railway that has to act.
Government Railway Police (GRP) had contacted the PCSC several times raising the need for installing CCTV cameras in all relevant stations. Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, in which a commuter can dial 119 and a location-enabled message will be sent to the railway beat police, is also being planned, the court was told
