Udupi (Karnataka) May 26: A potential disaster was avoided on the Konkan Railway route near Udupi, thanks to the vigilance of track maintainer Pradeep Shetty.

In the early hours of Sunday, at 2.25 am, Shetty discovered a track weld failure between Innanje and Padubidri. He promptly reported the defect to the concerned officials, preventing a possible train mishap.

The defect on the track was swiftly fixed, and by 5.58 am, a track-fit certificate was issued with a speed restriction of 20 kmph for trains running on it.

Santosh Kumar Jha, Chairman and Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL), recognised Shetty’s quick action and announced an immediate cash award of Rs 25,000. The award was presented to Shetty at the restored track site later in the afternoon.

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Passenger Vishal Shenoy, who was aboard the Panchaganga Express bound for Karwar, recounted that the train was detained at Nandikur Station, approximately 9 km south of Padubidri. Simultaneously, the Netravati Express bound for Thiruvananthapuram Central was also held up at Innanje. Shenoy observed a Rail Maintenance Vehicle (RMV) heading towards Padubidri for track restoration work.

Train Number 16345, the Mumbai LTT-Thiruvananthapuram Central Netravati Express, was scheduled to depart from Udupi at 3 am, while Train Number 16595, the KSR Bengaluru-Karwar Panchaganga Express, was due to pass through the affected stretch around 4 am on Sunday.

Both trains remained stationary until the track defect was rectified.

Sudha Krishnamurthy, Manager of Public Relations at Konkan Railway, confirmed that train traffic resumed after the track received a certification for safe operation, albeit with the speed restriction in place.

However, the cause of the track defect has not yet been disclosed by Konkan Railway officials.

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Indore, Nov 24: Some online fraudsters got their target and timing horribly wrong on Sunday after they attempted to "digitally arrest" a senior police official with an automated call over "credit card misuse" while he was addressing a press conference in Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

"The caller informed that I had misused my credit card and as a result a case had been registered with Andheri West police station in Mumbai. I was having a press briefing at the time. I was told my bank account would be blocked and was asked to visit the police station in two hours," Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP) of Indore crime branch Rajesh Dandotia told PTI.

The official said he told the caller he would not be able to make it to Mumbai from Indore at such short notice.

"The caller told me he would be connect me to someone from the police station. He then connected me to another person, who asked me to wait. He said he would talk to his senior officer to see if my statement could be recorded via video call. When he saw me in police uniform, he immediately disconnected the video call," the official narrated.

Dandotia said he asked media persons to record a video so that people can be made aware of such cyber crimes and digital arrest.

Digital arrest is a modus operandi of cyber criminals who threaten a person with arrest, force the person to remain confined in a room while keeping him or her under electronic surveillance and then extort money on the pretext of "clearing" him or her of charges.