BENGALURU: A loco pilot attached to the Bengaluru Railway Division was allegedly abducted by the driver of a cab he hired from Kempegowda International Airport early on Tuesday, robbed of his mobile phones and money and dumped at Kadur in Chikkamagalur district, about 205 km from Bengaluru. The loco pilot, however, managed to escape from there.
According to railway sources, Sonu Kumar Singh, employed at Yeshwantpur railway station, reached the airport from Patna at 1.20 am on Tuesday. “He hired the cab of an aggregator from the airport to his residence in K R Puram. After covering about 2 km and crossing one of the toll gates, the driver stopped for tea. There, another person joined them in the car. Singh objected to it, but the driver convinced him that the other person was his friend who needed to be dropped off as was late,” a top official said.
A few minutes later, the duo, aged around 35 and speaking in both Kannada and English, tied Singh’s hands and gagged him with a handkerchief. “They drove up to Tumakuru where they took him to an ATM and withdrew close to Rs 20,000 using his ATM card. An auto driver joined them there and collected the money.”
“According to Singh, the abductors asked him to call up his family in Bihar and deposit Rs 2 lakh through Google Pay. His family did not have the money. He then called up five of his colleagues and they have quickly deposited money in his account. The abductors managed to transfer nearly Rs 1 lakh using his phone to one of their accounts,” the source said. They snatched both his personal phone and the CUG phone given by the Railways.
They drove the car up to Kadur. “The duo went to have alcohol at a highway dhaba leaving Singh inside the cab. He managed to escape and hitched a ride on a two-wheeler and reached Kadur police station. He later reached the railway station and railway officials in Bengaluru were alerted about his plight. Officials in Aarsikere escorted him to Bengaluru on Tuesday evening,” police said. An FIR will be filed at the Airport Police Station, police added.
“The information received is completely the version of the loco pilot. It needs to be verified,” a top railway official said.