Surat: 3 Railway Employees Arrested for Sabotaging Tracks to Demand Night Shifts and Felicitation

Surat: 3 Railway Employees Arrested for Sabotaging Tracks to Demand Night Shifts and Felicitation

Police in Gujarat’s Surat district arrested three railway workers on Monday. The employees—Subhash Poddar, Manish Mistry, and Shubham Jaiswal—are believed to have endangered rail passengers by tampering with tracks. The trio, who all worked as trackmen, hoped their actions would impress superiors enough to give them more night shifts. Fortunately for all those involved, no one was hurt as a result of what they did; further investigations revealed damage before any trains came along.

The three individuals are being accused of tampering with train tracks close to Kim railway station in an attempt to cause a train to derail. They contacted the authorities at around 5:30 am on September 21st, saying unknown persons had taken away part of the track needed for trains to run safely—and it looks like they wanted a train to come off the tracks. Railway bosses say one train went over what had been interfered with before anyone raised the alarm.

After looking into the matter, law enforcement officials observed that it would have been nearly impossible for someone from outside to have messed with the tracks in so little time. What they did find odd, however, while going through the suspects’ cellphones—were videos showing damaged railway tracks, shot between 2:56 a.m. and 4:57 a.m.; some telltale photos had been deleted as well. When asked about all this evidence, the three men who maintain the tracks confessed.

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They explained that they wanted to be assigned to shifts that would allow them to be with their families more in the daytime—and also they thought that if they told authorities about the danger spots they had created, people would think they were pretty great. Officials say there have been several similar episodes recently; tampering with train tracks is also becoming more common throughout India—a trend that has prompted heightened security measures across the rail network. Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw noted at a news conference Tuesday that these incidents reveal ongoing challenges posed by terrorism and sabotage; he added that along with working closely with state governments on such matters, there will be no let-up in either surveillance or punishment led by the NIA. Be-alert squads are keeping close watch everywhere.