VIJAYAWADA: Government Railway Police (GRP) Vijayawada on Monday arrested two brothers in the Rayagada–Guntur Express bag theft case and recovered Rs 84.5 lakh stolen from a passenger earlier this month.
GRP DSP Ratna Raju said the theft occurred on November 1 when poultry farm manager Bezawada Naga Raju was travelling in Coach B1.
He said the victim placed his cash bag under the berth, slept after Rajahmundry and realised the bag had been stolen only after the train left Vijayawada. GRP registered a case and began an investigation.
Under the supervision of senior railway police officials, a joint team of GRP, RPF and CIB identified the suspects — Budala Ashok Kumar and Lalith Babu — using CCTV footage from Vijayawada railway station.
Inspector Venkata Ramana said “the CCTV clips showed a masked man in a hoodie leaving Platform 1 carrying the stolen bag. Police tracked his movements through multiple towns up to Ongole using CCTV, vehicle-driver inquiries, tower dumps and call data records. He said Ashok, a former real estate worker and briefly a reporter, was aware of the poultry farm’s regular cash movements and planned the theft with his brother. Ashok impersonated a police officer to board the train, stole the bag at Vijayawada and used autos.