As part of its campaign to make passengers vigilant about drugging through biscuits that is rampant in recent times, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) has been distributing  pouches to passengers bearing cautionary messages  on them inside trains.

Creating awareness

“These pouches are distributed to commuters  by RPF personnel who patrol trains .
“ They are quite useful as the train tickets can neatly fit into them.  Hence, it would be preserved safely inside pockets  or bags and the chances of the message reaching the public are much higher than pamphlets which are generally thrown away,” said RPF Senior Security Commissioner B B Mishra.

  One side of the pouch is dark blue in colour and has the warning  printed on it in white in Hindi and English.
The other side is transparent. About 10,000 such pouches have been readied.

Easy targets

 “Since September-end, we have been distributing them to passengers inside North-bound trains where the incidents of drugging through eatables, particularly biscuits and laddoos are very high, “ he  said.  It is the labour class that gets easily cheated.

They visit their native places once in six or seven months. They carry large amounts of money and other valuables along with them for family and relatives. They are easy targets since they easily believe co-passengers and accept casual friendships, he  added. 

List of trains

Trains in which these  pouches have been distributed so far include the Karnataka Express, Udyan Express, Yesvantpur-Bilaspur Express, Bangalore-Gorakhpur Express, Bangalore-Muzaffarpur Express and also several weekly trains from the City to various parts of the country.

There are plans to manufacture more such pouches if the present lot gets exhausted,  Mishra said.
In addition to the pouches,  20,000 pamphlets with wordings in Kannada, English and Hindi are also being distributed at railway stations.

The warning

This is the warning  that the pouch and the pamphlets spell out:  “Do not accept biscuits, tea, drinks, fruits from strangers. Don’t get drugged and lose your cash, jewels, etc.”
So. watch out when you travel by trains.
SL