ISLAMABAD, Sept 20: Railways Minister Mian Shamim Haider said on Tuesday that the Balochistan and Sindh sections of the Railways were the ‘most troubled’ and announced a string of measures to protect trains and rail stations from sabotage attempts.

The railways minister told the National Assembly that the Quetta-Jacobabad, Kashmoor, Habibkot and Kotri sections had been declared ‘sensitive’.

Mr Haider said that police had been put on high alert and had been directed to check thoroughly all trains and passengers.

Rail authorities will deploy police commandos and bomb disposal squads and install closed-circuit cameras and metal detectors on trains and at railway stations, the minister said.

Apart from that, he said, the doors of rail carriages will also be kept locked. In response to a question by lawmaker Farid Ahmed Paracha, the minister said that in trains plying on these sections, two out of four doors of each carriage, would be locked and bolted.

The house was informed that passenger trains in Balochistan would now run in the day and not at night.

Some 150 additional security personnel have been deployed in Balochistan and additional weapons have been provided to strengthen the railway police.

Police commandos and bomb disposal staff will be deployed at rail stations to carry out proper checks on passengers and freight at both entry and exit points. Commandos will keep an eye on all those who enter toilets in running trains and check the facilities after they exit from them to ensure that no explosive material is left there.

According to the minister, pilot locomotives are being run ahead of Mail and Express trains to avoid any untoward incident.

The house was also informed that all railway cargo handlers and vendors would have to obtain security clearance.—PPI

Ahmed Hassan adds: The combined opposition again walked out of the National Assembly on Tuesday in protest against Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain’s decision to disallow them from speaking on an adjournment motion seeking a debate on reported harassment of candidates and administrative interference in the third phase of local council polls.

The opposition lawmakers rose from their seats in an attempt to speak and later left the house in protest when the speaker reserved his ruling on the adjournment motion.

Earlier, the speaker solicited the opinion of both treasury and opposition MNAs on admissibility of the motion.

Aitzaz Ahsan of PPP said “we want to expose through this adjournment motion a conspiracy hatched under a political decision to rig the local councils polls”.

He alleged that the earlier two stages of polls were rigged massively and the third phase was also being manipulated by using all tactics of administrative interference. He described the issue as substantially single and of immediate nature.

Liaquat Baloch of MMA alleged that the official force was being used for forced withdrawals from the contest besides registration of fake cases against lawmakers.