According to officials, while 171 of these tweets were on the twitter handle of the Railway Protection Force, the rest were on the twitter handle of the cell constituted by the divisional railway manager of CR's Mumbai division
Social media platforms like Twitter are increasingly becoming the tool of choice for railway commuters in Mumbai to alert authorities about any emergency or inconvenience that crops up during their commute. Between January and October 12, Central Railway has got a total of 215 such 'help tweets from commuters. According to officials, while 171 of these tweets were on the twitter handle of the Railway Protection Force, the rest were on the twitter handle of the cell constituted by the divisional railway manager of CR's Mumbai division.
The latest episode was late on Monday night when three women travelling in the 22106 Pune-Mumbai Indrayani Express tweeted about a drunk man in coach D-6 of the train creating a ruckus. The tweet was made at around 9:45pm when the train was crossing Thane station and by the time the train reached platform number 6 of Dadar station, a two member team of the RPF was at hand to tackle the situation. The women had tweeted on railway minister Suresh Prabhu's twitter handle: @sureshpprabhu
"The three ladies, from Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, seated on berths 26,27 and 28 told our personnel that it was them who had tweeted about an inebriated co-passenger. The RPF apprehended Dhanraj Meghwat, a resident of Kota in Rajasthan on the spot," said a RPF officer.
Meghawat was charged with sections 145 (drunkenness), 146 (obstructing government servant from doing his duty), 147 (trespass) and 155 (entering into reserved compartment) of the Railway Act. He was presented before a magistrate and was remanded to judicial custody tillOctober 17.
"There is no doubt that twitter and other social media platforms are now the fastest means of reaching the powers-that-be. It is also because a lot of passengers themselves have twitter handles and know how to use it to seek help during a commute," said an official.
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