WR takes steps to avoid incidents as pilgrims travel on train

Special measures are being taken to avoid untoward incidents as hundreds of passengers travel on the roof of trains to reach Junagadh to participate in the Girnar Parikrama pilgrimage, a Western Railway official said Monday.

The area is in the jurisdiction of WR's Bhavnagar Division.

The five-day parikrama, in which pilgrims cover a distance of 36 kilometres walking around Mount Girnar, located in Junagadh district, began last week.

With several of these routes towards Junagadh serviced by metre-gauge trains, passengers have been seen climbing on to their roofs to get to the area, said officials.

A large posse of Railway Protection Force personnel had been posted, train speeds had been curtailed and special buses had deployed to avoid untoward incidents, a WR official from Bhavnagar division said.

"RPF is escorting trains coming towards Junagadh from Amreli, Dilwara, Veraval, and Gondal and other routes. We have identified main stations like Amreli, Diwara, Visavadar and have deployed personnel there. We are asking pilgrims not to travel on the roofs of trains," said Trupti Gupte, Divisional Security Commissioner, RPF, Bhavnagar division of Western Railway.

She added that railways had also provided buses from Una, Dilwara and other places to lessen the rush in trains.

"We have issued caution order for trains to move at lower speeds. We have also called RPF from Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Ahmedabad divisions," she said, adding that the crowd of devotees is likely to increase as the festival progresses.

A Railway official said there were reports that two to three people had fallen off the roof of a metre-gauge train between Junagadh and Visavadar on Saturday, adding that no such incident was reported on Sunday and Monday.