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.