BENGALURU: In a meticulously planned operation, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Government Railway Police (GRP) laid a trap near the Yesvantpur Railway station on Monday and nabbed two suspects who allegedly drugged passengers with sedative pills and robbed them. The incident occurred in the sleeper-class compartment of the Yesvantpur-Howrah Express, which departed on October 31.
The two middle-aged passengers heading to Howrah were found unconscious in their seats by co-passengers, who alerted railway cops at Vijayawada. They were admitted to a hospital, and the Bengaluru RPF was alerted.
A senior railway source in Bengaluru told TNIE: “The duo were robbed of their mobile phones and bags. It was a case of them being drugged, but they repeatedly stressed that they did not eat anything on the train. Something felt amiss and we later learnt that they had partaken of snacks at a small eatery just outside the Yesvantpur station before boarding the train.
Two Bengali-speaking individuals befriended them and offered biscuits along with tea. However, the victims stressed that the duo also ate the snack with them.” The cops strongly felt the biscuits must have been laced with drugs. With this input, the RPF brought a Bengali-speaking cop from Yelahanka to Yesvantpur to assist in a sting operation.
“The cop was made to wear a gold chain and stand in the vicinity of the station. GRP and RPF personnel in mufti were lying in wait,” a top official explained.
“The two suspects approached the cop in mufti and spoke with him in Bengali. They invited him for tea and opened a cream biscuit packet, and we caught them,” he added. The duo confessed and said they had been involved in such crimes for nearly seven years in West Bengal. “It was only a fortnight ago that they came to Bengaluru and rented a place in Dasarahalli.
On raiding their house, we found strips of 2 mg Lorazepum tablets and biscuit packets, besides 12 mobile phones worth Rs 1.5 lakh,” he said. Their perfect planning was quite a revelation to the police. “They slit open biscuit packets with a sharp knife, ground the tablets and used a little water to ensure it attached to the cream. They later sealed the packets with a light flame so that it appeared as if unopened,” they explained. The GRP has registered an FIR against the duo, aged 30 and 41, under Sections 328 and 379 of the IPC. They have been remanded in police custody till November 13.