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CHENNAI: Strongly opposing the Centre’s move to do away with Government Railway Police of State governments, which serve as the link between the Railway Protection Force and the district police, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday night said, “in the absence of GRP, co-ordination between RPF and the State police will suffer and the railway stations will become islands of Central government authority within the territorial jurisdiction of the States.”Referring to a letter written to Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu in this regard, the CM, in her communication to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, charged that the present ill-conceived move of the Railway ministry was yet another blatant attempt of the Centre to usurp the powers of the states and was violative of the provisions of the Constitution as well as the Indian Police Act. The CM observed that public order and police are State subjects and the present attempt is a clear attempt to encroach upon the powers of the states, which would be lethal to the federal structure of the country. The Railways Ministry’s proposal empowers the RPF to deal with passenger related offences in the passenger area and declare RPF posts (units) as police stations. It also empowers RPF officers to exercise the powers of an officer in charge of a police station and move from a three-tier railway security system (RPF, GRP and District Police) to a two-tier system.Jayalalithaa said in the absence of the GRP, co-ordination between the RPF and the State police would suffer. Further, the GRP deals with not only cases of theft but also other incidents such as death on railway tracks. She said transferring these cases to the district police would place a heavy burden on them. The states would lose the funding now given for GRP, while having to continue performing law and order duties relating to the railways.“If this trend of making railway stations and trains the exclusive domain of RPF continues, a time may come when the district police may be barred from entering railway stations for making the arrest of accused wanted in local police cases,” she said.
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