A man arrested from Varanasi is alleged to be the mastermind of an interstate gang that cut into the parcel coaches of moving trains and stole packages, the Railway Protection Force has said. Goods worth more than Rs 7 lakh were recovered, including clothes and artificial jewellery found in a godown in Varanasi.
The arrests were announced on Thursday evening, 8 October, by the RPF unit at Ujjain, which worked with the crime branch of the Surat RPF and a team from the Mumbai division. Three people were arrested. The main accused, Anil Patel, was picked up from Varanasi, according to the RPF. The two others were arrested from Munger in Bihar. The RPF said teams are searching for two more members of the gang at different places.
According to the RPF, the gang targeted the SLR coaches, the combined luggage and brake-van coaches that carry parcels, of moving trains. Members are alleged to have worn the dress of railway maintenance staff and entered through the coach meant for passengers with disabilities. Once inside, they allegedly used an electric cutter to cut through the plywood and iron sheet of the SLR coach and reach the parcels, then got off the train before the next station.
The RPF said the dress made them look like workers doing maintenance, and that investigators found the gang scouted the train and the coach before acting.
The case came together after two thefts with the same method. On 19 September, parcels of artificial jewellery were stolen from the SLR coach of train number 15569, the Ahmedabad-Darbhanga Antyodaya Express, after the coach was cut open with a cutter. A separate theft of readymade ladies' garments from a train of the Mumbai division followed the same pattern. On the directions of senior officers of the Western Railway, a joint team was formed.
From the godown in Varanasi that is linked to Anil Patel, the RPF said it recovered readymade ladies' garments worth more than Rs 5.60 lakh that had been stolen from the railway. Artificial jewellery worth about Rs 1.50 lakh, connected to the second theft, was also recovered. Together the recovered goods are valued at more than Rs 7 lakh, the RPF said.
The accused are alleged to have committed the offences. The charges are yet to be tested in a court, and the RPF has not given details of the sections under which they have been booked.
The RPF has not said whether it plans any change in how SLR coaches are guarded, and it has not issued an advisory to people who send parcels by train.
The Varanasi link in this case is the arrest of the main accused and the godown where the goods were found. The RPF has not said whether the gang committed thefts on trains passing through Varanasi.
Other police matters in the city covered this week include the FIR over an alleged Rs 10 lakh land fraud at Cantt police station. Rail operations in the city were also hit by the storm that snapped an overhead line near Cantt. The RPF has said searches are on for two more accused.
