ERODE: The Railway police arrested four persons and remanded them in custody for their alleged involvement in the series of chain snatching incidents in moving trains in the Salem-Erode route for the past one month. The police said that the jewellery would be recovered and handed over to their owners soon.
According to the police, after 12 cases were registered against the suspects for allegedly stealing 53 sovereigns, special teams were formed to nab them. On Friday night, the Coimbatore railway police team led by DSP Ramesh, nabbed a four-member gang near Erode Railway Home Signal. All the suspects were reportedly from Solapur in Maharashtra.
The police said that one of the suspects had been using an artificial limb. During day he would beg, and after sunset, he would rob people, assisted by his relatives. In Erode and Salem districts, they targeted railways stations like Erode, Katpadi, Jolarpet and Salem, where the movement of people was less in night.
Also, they used to wait at places where trains would pass at a slow speed or stop waiting for signals, and snatch chains from women through the windows. Apart from this, they used to stole goods kept near the doors. Thereafter, they would walk along the railway tracks. If anyone tried stopping them, they allegedly attacked them with stones, the police said, noting that they escaped by attacking a police near Salem on May 4.
To check this kind of incidents, security was beefed up in the route. People could lodge complaints to the railway police at 1512, GRP Mobile App and Kavalan (mobile app), and Whatsapp no 99625 00500, a release said.