The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Crime on the rise in areas surrounding subway at Tambaram

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Sunday, Dec 09, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Crime on the rise in areas surrounding subway at Tambaram

K. Manikandan

Absence of barricades and poor policing add to residents’ woes

— Photo: A.Muralitharan

BREEDING GROUND: Dense overgrowth of vegetation in the area near the limited-use subway at Tambaram has made it a den for anti-social elements.

TAMBARAM: Dense bushes, little illumination, absence of barricades and poor policing have made the areas surrounding the limited-use subway, for two-wheelers and cars, at Tambaram, a crime-prone spot.

Drug peddlers have a free run here and the place has become a convenient spot for meat stalls to dump their waste. The area also witnesses suicides and people getting killed by trains while crossing the track in the absence of a fence.

Residents of East Tambaram recalled that there were a few hundred huts in the Indira Gandhi Colony adjacent to the railway level crossing (LC No. 30) at the intersection of Grand Southern Trunk Road, Velachery Main Road and Mudichur Road. In 1999, the huts were evicted for widening of the approach roads leading to the level crossing and also in connection with the work on a subway, completed in 2004.

When the subway was commissioned, the entire stretch was neat and free of encroachments. But now, uncontrolled growth of vegetation has made it one of the most feared spots at Tambaram.

In the absence of proper fencing, people cross the railway tracks at this point to reach GST Road from Velachery Main Road.

There have been several instances of men and women being attacked and robbed. Early in the morning, waste from the meat stalls, particularly those selling beef, are dumped here and stray dogs scamper for food.

The most worrying problem is the sale of narcotics by drug peddlers and miscreants under the cover of darkness.

Councillors of the Tambaram Municipality and even a section of the police here vouch for this. Crackdown on mischief mongers and anti-social elements keep things under check, but only for a while.

There is a very simple solution to the problem, a councillor, who preferred anonymity, said: clear the vegetation, install high mast lamps and build fences to prevent trespass. A combined operation by Southern Railway, the municipality and the police, lasting less than a day, will rid the entire area of its problems.

Motorists are also of the view that if lighting is improved, the entire stretch will become a safer place to travel through.

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