With more than 40 hoax calls received by various railway police stations since January this year, Mumbai Railway Police commissioner A K Sharma has written to both the Central Railway and the Western Railway, asking them to install caller identification system for all telephones in key railway offices, railway stations and railway police stations of both the RPF and the GRP across the city.

“We get plenty of calls alerting us about bombs or explosives being kept in trains or on platforms and they all turn out to be hoax calls. This is mischief on the part of the caller as he or she either wants to play a prank or is running late to catch a long distance train,” said Sharma. Most of the hoax calls were traced to public telephones or cellphones, with the caller usually offering a fake name and address for himself. However, some four or five callers were traced in recent months and a case was also registered against one caller.

“It becomes problematic for us to trace the caller since he calls up randomly and informs the railway stations or important railway establishments. Apart from the control rooms, all important offices do not have caller identification systems installed, which makes it difficult to trace the caller,” added Sharma.

According to Sharma, some 15,000 man hours were wasted due to hoax calls since January. The hoax calls not only spread panic but also cause delays to long distance trains. Last month, the RPF’s chief security commissioner B S Sidhu had submitted a proposal to the rail ministry seeking that hoax calls be treated on a par with ‘terror activities’. The proposal is currently pending with the Centre for consideration.

“We have received the letter from the railway police and we are working on it. Currently, some seven to eight railway stations have caller identification system installed, but we plan to install it in other suburban stations as well. The telephone exchanges covering stations beyond Kalyan are currently not offering the caller identification facility. We have written to the telephone exchange to get this problem sorted out,” said S Sharma, additional Divisional Railway Manager (CR). “We are working on it too,” added S S Gupta, chief spokesperson for WR.