The superintendent of police Avinash Dhanvijay said so far railway police had only fired in the air to scare away dacoits, but with this order dacoits could be gunned down.

The order to this effect has been issued in the south sector of Maharashtra to tackle train robberies, he said.

Additional police force has been deployed in these areas in view of repeated dacoity attempts. Besides constables, officers also would go on night patrol to check train robberies.

Three abortive dacoity attempts had been made on trains including Mumbai-bound Kanyakumari Express, Sahyadri Express and Netravati Express at different places within a span of two days which greatly worried the police set-up in the state.However, to some extent, police felt increased patrolling would do the trick all the same.

Railwayprotection force jawans had fired in air to scare away the dacoits in all the three cases. But now with the new directive the railway police will have no hesitation whatsoever in gunning down the dacoits.