NAROWAL, Aug 7: Railway police have failed to protect life and property of passengers at the Lahore-Narowal section. Theft, dacoity, pickpocketing and eve-teasing incidents in the trains running between Lahore and Narowal have become a common practice. A big number of beggars can also be seen in the trains.

Train compartments are usually very dirty, toilets without water and even doors and windows without glasses.

The passengers allege it seems that the railway police are patronising the criminals as they have failed to check crimes.

Some 15 trains run daily between Lahore and Narowal, and the occurrence of such incidents has become a routine. The railway highups have been requested to take note of the situation, but to no avail.

Anjuman-i-Shehrian Narowal president Shaikh Sayer Ali says vagabonds often misbehave and tease women in trains.

Yasir Shaheen, Sheikh Zaki, Muzzafar Husain and Nasir Maqbool told this scribe that their mobile phones were stolen from their pockets while travelling from Lahore to Narowal by Lasani Express.

Shaikh Ahsan of Kutchery Road, Narowal, said he was travelling along with his family by Lasani Express when at the Narang railway station a man snatched his mobile phone at gunpoint in the presence of other passengers and ran away.

Hafiz Waqas of Amin Colony, Narowal, said a passenger caught a pickpocket red-handed and handed him over to the railway police, but they released him.

On July 20, a pickpocket took away the mobile phone of a Lasani Express passenger near the Mehta Sooja railway station. The passenger caught the accused later identified as Imtiaz and asked him to return his phone, but he got down the train at the Mehta Sooja railway station. When the passenger chased him, he called his accomplices. On his call, some 20 men gathered there and started beating the passenger. The other passengers came to his rescue and forced the policemen accompanying the train to arrest the accused.

The police took the accused into custody and handed him over to the railway police post staff at Narowal. As the incident had taken place at the Mehta Sooja railway station which falls in the jurisdiction of the Shahdara railway police post, so the staff of the Narowal post decided to shift the accused to Shahdara post. Two policemen escorted the accused in a train that left Narowal at 7:30pm for Lahore.

An uncle of the accused, who is serving with the railway police, informed his accomplices that he was being shifted to Lahore. When the train reached the Mehta Sooja railway station, some 100 armed men intercepted it and got hold of its driver, the stationmaster, the guard, six policemen and the other staff. They misbehaved with the passengers and got Imtiaz released. They also took away the weapons of policemen which they threw at a distance from the railway station while escaping.

The train remained stopped at the railway station for more than one hour.

The railway police had registered a case, but have so far failed to arrest any of the accused.

Meanwhile, the passengers and social and political circles have demanded early arrest of the accused. They have also demanded that the railway police should be equipped with modern weapons, the number of policemen accompanying the trains be increased, a new police post be set up at the Narang police station and ensure the safety and security of the passengers.