More than 8,600 males travelling illegally in ‘women only’ coaches of the Delhi Metro were nabbed and deboarded this year, an official data has revealed.
These males, across various age groups, were apprehended by officials and special squads of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) during this year, barring the month of December. A total of 8,666 male passengers, between the months of January-November, were apprehended from the all-women coaches of Delhi Metro, lower from last year’s figure of 15,243 under the same category.
“The figures, it is felt, have come down this year due to an increased vigil and generation of mass awareness against this practise by various agencies working to secure the Delhi Metro. It is expected that the figures for December would be about 500 more male passengers, which will stand much below than the last year’s for this offence,” a senior official said. The CISF, after nabbing the offenders, hands them over to the local police and they are fined Rs250 under section 64 (1) of the Delhi Metro Railway (Operations and Maintenance) Act, 2000.
The security force, over the last few years, has intensified its checks and patrols in its coaches and its men and women personnel travel inside these earmarked spaces in uniform or in mufti to catch the offenders. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) keeps one coach reserved for women passengers each train. Recently, the CISF had trained and deployed a special Filipino martial art trained Kali commando women squad tasked to carry out special checks and operations against men who travel in women’s coaches.
These women are trained in the martial art form of Pekiti-Tirsia Kali (PTK) under which they are trained to tactically use common objects worn on the body like pen, hairpin, cap, belt, shoelaces, keys and sandals as deadly weapons to take on rogues. The CISF is the designated nodal force for securing the Delhi Metro network, platforms and rail coaches in the 134 Metro stations in the National Capital Region (NCR), which includes Delhi and its neighbouring cities like Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon.
