LAHORE: A tug of war has started between the Pakistan Railways (PR) administratiton and its police over checking and penalising the ticketless passengers and increasing the revenue.
As the railways police constituted teams to capture ticketless passengers, the PR administration told the police that they were not allowed to check and penalise the ticketless passengers on their own.
“We are doing this just to assist the PR administration to capture and penalise such passengers and increase the revenue,” says PR Police IG Muhammad Wisal Fakhar Sultan while speaking to Dawn.
He is at a loss to understand why the administration is refusing to accept their help.
“We are doing this just in compliance with the orders of the minister for railways who wants a drastic reduction in the free-travelling,” he added.
According to a letter of Sept 18, written by the office of PR Police IG, the police constituted four special teams.
The teams were directed to undertake checking and enforcement duties, coordinate with railway commercial/travelling ticket examiner (STE/TTE) staff during checking, check passengers at railway stations, platforms and on train to ensure that no passengers evaded the railway fare.
The teams were directed to maintain coordination with SHOs and PR Commercial Branch (special ticket examiners, checkers, station masters and other staff concerned) along with joint checking operations.
“It seems a matter of getting powers for taking ‘benefits’ as I have been looking into these issues since long. The PR police officials and the railways commercial department (STEs, station masters etc) used to check passengers on their own to ‘earn’. Such practices are still underway,” an insider told Dawn.
In response to the PR Police, the PR administration, in its reply of Sept 21, said that in the Railway Rules & Policies it is clearly mentioned that “Railway Police officials are not authorised to conduct ticketless checking in trains and it is not a part of their duty and job description”.
It added that the chief commercial manager was the authorised officer for the purpose of this rule, and the commercial inspectors, traffic inspectors, travelling inspector of accounts, ticket-examining, checking and collecting staff and station master were empowered to take action.
It also quoted some previous letters instructing clearly that the special ticket examiner (STE) had the authority of checking.
According to the letter, no other person, including any Railway Police official, is authorised to conduct the duty of ticketless checking.
The role of the Railway Police in this regard is to render assistance to the ticket checking staff in the discharge of their duties but by no means to carry out the ticketless checking independently. However, while on train, if the police staff observe any irregularity, they can bring it to the knowledge of the ticket checking staff.
“Railways Police officers/officials may conduct joint ticketless checking in trains with commercial checking staff after issuance of proper weekly programme by the office of CCM in coordination with the DIG PR police concerned as covered under General Rules S.R.1/1 and ensure necessary assistance to commercial branch, ticket checking staff while conducting ticketless campaign in the trains,” the letter concludes.
PR CEO, Muhammad Hafeezullah said that there was no issue between the PR administration and the police.
“The PR police is on board with us in terms of joint operations against the ticketless passengers,” he maintained.
Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2026
