Jurisdiction and allied issues usually come in between the aggrieved citizen and the Police especially for people travelling in trains wishing to file FIRs following encountering offences committed against them like loot, rape, assault, theft or killings which must be sorted out and addressed . In this connection, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has urged his Cabinet colleague looking after the Railways to start a facility by which passengers could file FIR online. The idea behind it is that any passenger travelling in a train in the event of anything happening with him needs to visit Government Railway Police (GRP) station to get the FIR registered. The process is that this FIR goes to the Stateconcerned,then to the district and eventually to the police station concerned. Despite all this, the aggrieved passenger is not assured to get justice. Filing of FIRs online could address the issue and take care of the case travelling on its own convenience as dictated by the practice.
In this connection, the Home Ministry has furtherassured the Railway Minister of all logistic support that the introduction of this online filing of FIRs would require. The Home Ministry, it may be reiterated, has already started implementing ‘crime and criminal tracking network and system of CCTNS’ for the integration of State police work . The Home Minister has asserted that he would look into whether the online filing of FIRs by Railway passengers could be integrated into the CCTNS system that allows citizens to lodge FIRs electronically. This facility is necessitated keeping in view about 24000 theft cases alone registered by the passengers annually not to speak of other crimes taking place on running trains. The need is to give wide publicity to this facility even in railway coaches by prominently exhibiting through conventional means besides at Railway stations as merely there being a facility carries no sense unless the public knows about it thoroughly.
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