RailEnquiry

Commuters who are wary of the new high-tech baggage scanners installed at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), as they give robbers a peek into what’s inside the bag including valuables, can now rest easy.Alok Bohra, senior divisional security commissioner, RPF, Central Railway, told DNA that the engineering department would soon be setting up booths to block the view of the computer screens.In its March 25, 2013, edition DNA had reported on how the computer screen of the Rs2-crore X-ray machine faces the public and robbers mark out those people carrying expensive items and then steals it from them during the course of the journey. Following the report, the construction of the booth around the Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable, who views the scanned images on the computer, gathered pace.The scanners were kept at the main entrance of the station which gave people a good view of the scanned images. In fact, many people used to stand behind the constable to make sense out of the fluorescent scanned images. While RPF officials say the probability of a person looking at the scanned images and making out whether there are valuables in the bag was low, it was best not take chances.The baggage scanners are part of the 11 being bought for the Central Railway stations under the Rs27 crore Integrated Security System plan.