LAHORE: In a bid to protect woman passengers and their children in particular and others in general during journey on all routes, Pakistan Railways (PR) police is set to launch a mobile phone application (App) through which anyone seeking help will be responded immediately.

Besides this, the police are also working on a proposal to install state-of-the-art cameras in trains that would be connected with a central control room to monitor activities of those involved in teasing passengers, especially women and their kids during journey, Dawn learnt on Thursday.

“The App namely Safar Sahaili (female friend during journey) is set to be launched by end of this month. Anyone, especially women and their kids travelling by rail network, can easily use this by clicking “Panic Button” in case of emergency. After doing so, a message for railway police as well as the respective district police would alert the officials, including those on duty in train, forcing them to rush to the spot and help the complainant without wasting time,” an official source privy to the development told Dawn on Thursday.

“Hopefully, the App would be introduced by end of the ongoing month,” he added.

Move aims at protecting women, children from harassment in trains

It merits mentioning that the decision to introduce the App was taken in the backdrop of the May 27 tragic incident in which a woman passenger, while travelling alone after being deprived of meeting with her kids by her ex-husband at Multan railway station in Karachi-bound Bahauddin Zakria Express, was gang-raped by some employees of the train’s private operators.

Later, a PR police patrol in Mehr Express also arrested two people for harassing a woman passenger who was travelling to Multan from Rawalpindi in coach No. 8 of the train after two male passengers started teasing her, leaving her with no option but to complain to the PR police officials. Similarly, some other incidents related to the safety and protection of the woman passengers were also reported.

However, it was learnt that there was no deployment of the PR police officials in the train for safety and security of passengers as, under a contract, the provision of security arrangement in the train was the duty of the private operator and not of the railway police.

The police said since the train was being run by a private firm/contractor after its commercial operation was outsourced to it by the PR, it was the contractor’s responsibility to deploy security officials in the train.

“The App will have three interface, connecting passengers with train, patrolling police and the control room, which will be ready within a week or so. A passenger is just required to click/press the panic button after which he/she will be responded within the shortest possible time,” the official said.

He said the training session had also been arranged recently for police officials, conductor, guards travelling in trains and others concerned by the National Information Technology Board.

About other initiatives being taken soon, the official said the PR police also planned to get the latest cameras installed in the coaches of all passenger trains. For this a separate central monitoring room would also be established as the work is under way in this regard these days.

“These cameras will have a feature of two-way communication that allows the monitor to intervene and direct the official on duty to check in case of any issue,” he said, adding that Federal Minister for Railways Khwaja Saad Rafique has also been requested to end shortage of the sanctioned strength of the PR police, as 2,500 posts were lying vacant.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2022