News
Rail security beefed up after vandalism death
The area from where a bottle was thrown at the passing train, claiming a life. Pix by Athula Devapriya
More railway security guards, including plain-clothed officials, are being recruited to combat hoodlums hurling missiles at moving trains following the death of a man hit by a thrown bottle.
The Superintendent of the Railways Protection Force, Anura Premaratne, said undercover security officials had been placed in various locations after a Zonal Education Deputy Director was hit when a person in Orugodawatta, near the Dematagoda station, threw a bottle at the train. The incident occurred on August 3.
Mr Premaratne said that railway protection units would be set up at stations, with officers monitoring the tracks between stations, to arrest culprits throwing stones and other objects at trains, injuring commuters.
Deputy Zonal Education Director, K.L. Pushpakumara, returning home to Anuradhapura after work in Colombo, succumbed to his injuries three days after being hit on the head with an empty arrack bottle.
Mr Premaratne said officers from three police stations, Grandpass, Peliyagoda and Anuradhapura, are investigating the death.
On Thursday night, a 70-year-old man on a Batticaloa-Colombo train was hit on the head with a stone while the train was passing Eravur and had to be admitted to hospital.
The past four months have seen an increase in incidents of people stoning trains as well as train commuters throwing objects at people beside the tracks, with some incidents causing serious injuries.
Gonsalves Sumith
One commuter’s eye was injured when a man threw a rambutan seed at a train at Kumarakanda railway station near Dodanduwa in June.
In July, two commuters in a Trincomalee-bound train were hit by objects while passing Thamapala.
There is at least one case a week of trains being stoned, the Assistant Superintendent of the Railway Protection Force (Central Division) Gonsalves Sumith said. Long-distance trains were targeted most.
“Trains travelling to Matara, Kandy, Jaffna and Trincomalee are the most vulnerable,” he said.
Mr Sumith also said there was suspicion that private companies operating transport to Jaffna and other areas could be involved in the violence in revenge against the loss of business following the commencement of the northern train service.
He said regular culprits were people living in illegal houses on Ceylon Government Railway property. “The relevant authorities should remove these illegal houses and relocate the people to some other area,” he said.
Meanwhile, officials investigating the Orugodawatta stoning incident are looking into the actions of young men flying kites near the track at that time and are also examining images from security cameras at nearby shops.
The bottle had been thrown from the direction of a Customs warehouse.
The Railways Department said the person responsible for the attack, if found, could be charged for murder and face a separate seven-year prison sentence under the Railway Act for hurting a commuter.
| Hit passenger refused treatment in anxiety to reach daughter
Udawela Ariyaratna, the guard of the Vavuniya-bound train in which Education Officer K.L. Pushpakumara was travelling, said soon after being informed of the attack he had called for an unscheduled stop at Ragama to send the passenger to hospital. A subsequent attempt was also made to get him to the Kurunegala hospital but Mr, Pushpakumara was insistent that he continue his journey and be treated in his home town, Anuradhapura. He had no major visible external injury and this led him to believe the injury was not serious. Mr. Ariyaratna said although Mr, Pushpakumara had been seated seven compartments away from his wagon, every time the train stopped he had talked to him and ticket-checkers had given him pain-killers and taken him from his third class compartment to a second class compartment. The Sunday Times learns Mr. Pushpakumara had been eager to get back home as his daughter was preparing for the GCE Advanced Level examination. The man’s widow called for justice for her husband and begged the public to be mindful of their actions. “People throw things at trains and commuters throw stuff at people but do they know that their actions caused me the loss of my husband?” she asked. “Our family is devastated,” she said.
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K.L. Pushpakumara who died after being hit by a bottle thrown by a person near the rail track in Orugodawatta repeatedly refused attempts by railway officials to get him to the nearest hospital, believing his injury was not serious, an official said.