CISF commandos helping Metro's women commuters at night

New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) Apart from providing security to women travelling in the Metro trains, the CISF's women commandos are also providing help to women commuters who require it for getting public transport late at night, a top official said here Monday.

According to Director General Arvind Ranjan, the women commandos are there to help them get public transport from outside the Metro premises.

"For the safety of women passengers, a team of women commandos trained in martial art has been deployed in Delhi Metro.

"They help women commuters travelling in late night hours in getting auto rickshaws and other public transport for their home in addition to providing them security inside the Metro premises," Ranjan said.

Briefing media persons on the eve of the Central Industrial Security Force's (CISF) 46th Raising Day, Ranjan said the women commandos also note down the number of the public transport in which the women passengers go home.

The CISF has deployed around 5,000 personnel -- men and women -- to secure the approximately 28 lakh passengers at 136 stations of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gurgaon.

"The women commandos will also help women passengers on some selected stations which get secluded during night hours," said Ranjan, adding that it creates a psychological effect in the minds of people that they are being watched and it gives a feeling of security to the women passengers.

Under "Operation Kali", a special drive for the safety of women commuters in Metro, the CISF officials have nabbed over 9,000 male passengers from the coaches reserved for women and fined them in 2014.

"For the safety of women, we have been operating "Operation Kali". We fined 9,124 male passengers in 2014 for travelling in women coaches. Only in January this year, we have fined 529 men," he said.

The CISF chief also said the force is increasingly relying on the coverage provided by CCTV cameras in stations to detect any "unusual behaviour" and "now we are in the process of installing more cameras".

The CCTV cameras have helped CISF in detecting about 180 instances where people were noticed to be in a disturbed state of mind.

"Out team rushed to attend to such passengers... More than 500 cases of people illegally walking on tracks were detected last year due to CCTV surveillance," Ranjan added.