BENGALURU: Following a series of thefts that took place on board trains passing through Krishnarajapuram railway station recently by a professional criminal gang from Haryana, the Government Railway Police (GRP) is now preparing a database that will help cops easily identify these miscreants in future.
Sharing these unpublicised incidents that took place last month, Superintendent of Police, GRP, Bengaluru Division, Anoop A Shetty said they were surprised when they unravelled a highly professional operation by gangs from Haryana who regularly stole from luggages of passengers onboard trains in Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi. Bengaluru has been recently added to their list.
It was on February 9 that the lid blew off the whole criminal activity. Plainclothes GRP cops found three men moving around suspiciously at the K R Puram railway station and took them for interrogation.
The group confessed to thefts on a few trains. “Altogether 498 grams of gold, worth Rs 12.5 lakh, hidden by them in a hotel in the city were recovered. They must have stolen thousands in cash too but would have spent them,” the Superintendent said.
Their modus operandi was quite simple, he explains. With hair cuts like that of army men and attired smartly, the group purchased sleeper class tickets and boarded trains from a station in the outskirts of the city like K R Puram. Passengers frequently mistook them for defence personnel and were very respectful towards them. They carried out their loot, alighted at another station midway and took it for safekeeping in a hotel booked in advance. The members were mostly in their late twenties or early thirties.
“The thieves, who operated as a three-member gang, stole by slashing the middle of the zip of bags and suitcases on trains using an instrument shaped like a hook. The act was carried out when one of them distracted the passenger by drawing his/her attention to something,” Shetty said.
The trio would slyly leave the coach before the passengers realise the luggage had been ripped into. “The thieves really had a knack of quickly figuring out where gold or cash is kept inside a luggage,” the SP said.
The three arrested were Surendra Singh (28), Virendra Kumar (31) and Hansraj Singh. They are out on bail now. Another gang from the village had struck at the Kanyakumari Express passing through Raichur railway station of Guntakal Division by boarding the train at Bangarpet. Two out of three were arrested and 334 grams of gold worth `9.10 lakh were recovered.
Counterparts in Delhi and Rajasthan have now been alerted about the modus operandi with and the details were shared. Meanwhile, a group of GRP personnel from Bengaluru visited the village in Haryana to cross check the details given by those nabbed. “The details were all correct. However, the local police refused any co-operation,” he added.