Resume trains at high-speed in Naxal areas: Rlys to police

The trains are currently running at 75 km/hr as Railways officials decided to run them at a slower speed in view of the frequent Maoist-called bandhs and threats in their strongholds in these three neighbouring eastern states.

At a meeting with police officials, South Eastern Railway General Manager A K Verma said that though it was a year since night trains were resumed in Junglemahal and other extremist- hit areas, the maximum permissible speed of trains was 75 km/hr.

Due to this, in December alone 212 trains lost punctuality, he said.

He requested senior officials from the states to look into the matter so that trains could be run at their maximum permissible speed of 110 km/hr, a SER release said.

Verma also spoke of the incidents of drugging, theft and dacoity in trains and said that the incidents have come down in 2012 as compared to the previous year.

More care, however, should be taken in providing security to passengers by bringing the occurrence of such incidents to a minimum level, it said.

Senior police officials including ADG, Railways, West Bengal, A K Sarkar, IG/IB, West Bengal O P Gupta, IG, Railways Odisha Mahendra Pratap, DIG, Chaibasa, Jharkhand Arun Kumar Singh, were among those present.