Mumbai: GRP to recruit ragpickers in fight against stone pelters

After recent stone pelting incidents on trains near Thane's Parsik tunnel wherein many people were injured, the Thane GRP has decided to train ragpickers to spot the culprits and inform them immediately.

Stone-pelting remains a serious threat to train commuters. A railway official said, "If police train ragpickers they will be of help. They work most of the time on the tracks and no culprit will imagine that they will hand them over to the police. Currently whenever the children who throw missiles at trains realise that police are coming, they stop it."

Police officer says
A Thane GRP senior PI said, "We are planning on training ragpickers. They can help us stop such incidents, but they do not have the knowledge to identify the culprits and keep an eye on such activities. So we will train them to do this."

3 kids caught red-handed
Recently a woman was injured and after investigating the matter GRP caught three children red-handed while throwing bottles at trains. A police officer said, one of the three would sit near the railway track. The two others threw bottles towards the coming train. A passenger standing on the footboard with a mobile phone in his or her hand would get hurt, dropping it.

The GRP officer said, "We nabbed them red-handed and produced them in juvenile court. But still many others do this and it is difficult to keep a lookout for these people. We need manpower therefore we have decided to train ragpickers who are always on the tracks to clean them."

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