BENGALURU: After a Scooty which arrived in the parcel van of a train from Mysuru to the KSR railway station vanished, police tracked down the thief who turned out to be the son of a railway employee and a daily wage worker hired off and on to unload luggage at the parcel office.
While there have been incidents of smaller parcels going 'missing', the disappearance of a vehicle had stumped railway officials, said a senior Railway Protection Force (RPF) cop. The intended recipient of the vehicle filed a complaint with the railway police on Friday (December 18), saying his consignment was not received.
The vehicle was booked on December 11 in the Mysuru-Myladuturai Festival Special, said a senior cop. "The Scooty with registration number KA-14 EP-2719 reached the KSR railway station at 6.40 pm the same evening. It was offloaded onto Platform 5."
Vehicles are regularly taken to the parcel office on Platform 1 after they are unloaded from trains. The parcel office staff got to know of the missing vehicle only after the complaint was filed a week later, the cop said.
Giving details on how the case was cracked, he said, "As soon as we got the complaint on Friday, a Special Task Force was formed to recover the vehicle. We reviewed CCTV footage and a suspect was identified. Parcel staff identified him as a person who used to help out in the parcel section and said he was the son of a railway staffer."
At 5.30 pm, the RPF conducted multiple raids at places the suspect was known to frequent and arrested him. "The Scooty was recovered and he confessed to his crime," the cop added.
Senior Divisional Security Commissioner, RPF, Bengaluru, Debashmita Chattopadhyay Banerjee told The New Indian Express, "CCTV analysis and strong local intelligence groundwork helped the RPF crack this case within a record time of 3.5 hours from its registration with us." She added, "We are in the process of increasing CCTV stations at all important stations to ensure there are no blind spots in order to enhance passenger security and offer better protection of railway property."
Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Bengaluru Railway Division, A N Krishna Reddy confirmed the development. "The arrested individual was neither a railway employee nor hired by any of our contractors. He was only a casual wage labourer who was used whenever the requirement arose."