An investigation into last year's bomb blast at the Darbhanga railway station in Bihar (East Central Railway) has exposed serious lapses on the part of parcel booking authorities in Secundrabad (South Central Railway) in not verifying the identity of the consignor/consignee and the contents of the parcel booked.
The accused persons, who gave fake documents to book the consignment containing the explosive on the Secundrabad-Darbhanga special train (Train No. 07007) on June 17, 2021, had conspired to trigger the blast on the moving train to cause loss of human life and property. However, the explosion occurred when the parcel was unloaded at the destination station and was being moved to the godown. Nobody was injured in the incident.
The National Investigation Agency took over investigation in the case and filed chargesheet against five suspected operatives of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in December last year, accusing them of conspiring to set ablaze the moving train by planting an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), which would could have led to the death of a large number of passengers and caused damage to public property.
An inquiry conducted by the railways revealed several lapses and loopholes, forcing the authorities to devise a standard operating procedure (SOP) for booking/delivery of parcels. Accordingly, an advisory was sent to the General Managers of all Zonal Railways to direct the parcel booking staff to take an attested copy of photo identity proof of the consignor at the time of booking and that of the consignee at the time of delivery. The list of authorised proof of identity/address would be similar to the documents required for KYC by banks or by the UIDAI.
OTP module
The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) was asked to develop a module for the Parcel Management System where the consignor and consignee would get a one-time password (OTP) to authenticate booking/delivery of parcels. Instructions were given to install a sufficient number of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras covering the entry/exit of parcel offices and to maintain the footage for at least one month.
Parcel scanners would be established at all booking offices where the consignments would be screened and stamped as “scanned, checked and found in order” by the official on duty. While trained personnel of the Railway Protection Force would be stationed at the booking counters to check on attempts to transport illegal/unauthorised goods by train, the dog squad team would conduct checks at random.
The parcel booking staff and lease holders were told not to bring any inward consignment in the last minute (within 30 minutes of the scheduled departure of the train).
