Sanjeev Devasia / Mid Day

Mumbai, Aug 28: Railway Board has identified 16 stations from the city among 185 station across India as being vulnerable to attack; based on what parameters, that’s the question
 
From a total of around 185 stations across the country, identified as being vulnerable to terror attacks by the Railway Board, 16 are in the city. However, it is not clear on what basis these stations have been declared “vulnerable”.

The listed stations were either affected by the train bombings in 2006. “They have neither undertaken a study, nor sought inputs from the local officials here,” an official pointed out.

A senior security official says, “How can they declare a station like Matunga sensitive, when Thane does not figure in that list?

The only reason could be that the Matunga on the western line was one of the stations, where serial blasts occurred on July 11. Mulund may have featured in the list because a bomb went off there on a suburban train coach a few years ago.”

Said another security official, “There’s no point in this exercise, when they have not done their homework. Such a list should have been drawn only after gathering inputs from various agencies including local security officials and intelligence agencies.”

According to officials, even Byculla is sensitive as per the Railway Board’s directive since an explosive was found in the station premises some time before the blasts.

Minister of State for Railways R Velu recently claimed before media persons in Tamil Nadu that a total of 185 stations across the country have been identified as vulnerable.

The survey had been conducted in the wake of blasts in suburban trains in Mumbai on July 11, 2006, and the bomb attack on the Samjhauta Express in February 2007.