Mumbai officegoers miss lunch as police target dabbawalas

Mumbai, Jul 28 (UNI) The serial blasts in Ahmedabad had its impact in the city in a different way with officegoers not receiving their lunch on time today.

Following the blasts, the City police stepped up security arrangements and also targetted Mumbai's famous Dabbawalas, by checking their dabbas at various stations, after receiving reports that the city could be the next target for terrorist strikes following the Ahmedabad and Bangalore blasts, thus delaying the lunch of many officegoers by quite some time.

The Railway police at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Churchgate railway stations checked the dabbas by metal detectors as majority of the tiffins supplied by the dabbawallas are loaded at these two stations and then dabbawalas take it on bicycles to supply it to various offices.

Dilip Suryawanshi Mane, senior inspector of CST railway police station, said the checking is part of a routine check up, as dabbas are carried on trains and from there on bicycles. Both trains and cycles have been used to transport terror by militants, therefore we have declared that we will spare none in the wake of the blasts.

Reacting to this, Mumbai's Jevan Dabba Wahatuk Mandal Secretary Gangaram Talekar said, ''We are ready for any check up at any time, but we fear that this will affect our business as we will not be in a position to supply tiffins to 1.75 lakh officegoers on time.'' He said ''Our dabbas are never checked or stopped by the Mumbai police, but now due to militant activities police are bound to check it.'' ''Our tiffin service person knows the house from where he brings the tiffin. A person who wants to carry out a blast could hand over the tiffin and leave the house after his mission. At that point, a dabbawala can only show the house from where he bought the tiffin,'' he added.

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