Chinese railway police captured a total of 20,980 fugitives last year, sources with the Ministry of Railways (MOR) said in Beijing Thursday.

An official with the MOR said that among the caught fugitives, there were altogether 10 criminals on the wanted list, and 3,721 criminals at large who committed vicious crimes.

The railway police focus their eyes mainly on the trains and at the railway stations, the official indicated. With the help of thenational information network on fugitives, railway police could examine, trace and seize the criminals in a short time and with high efficiency.

Statistics from the MOR showed that the cases seen at railway stations lowered by 19.8 percent in 2005 over the previous year and went down by 30.5 percent on train carriages.
 
(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2006)