HYDERABAD: Fifty-year-old Jagroop Singh, a person with disability (PwD) from Ludhiana in Punjab, was recently arrested by the Railway police at Secunderabad.
His crime? Singh would use his Divyang quota (reserved for PwDs) to purchase tickets for outstation trains and steal valuables from the co-passengers in the compartment. Police have recovered stolen property worth Rs 4.50 lakh from Singh and sent him to judicial remand.
Since he was a PwD, Singh would easily get a reserved ticket in a short duration before the trains’ departure.
According to the police, Singh would leave home after scheduling his journey for at least two weeks with confirmed tickets, and return home with the stolen goods.
He would travel continuously for two weeks, make break journeys to shorter distances, the police found.
While he used most of the loot for his family’s maintenance, the police also found that Singh had availed loans from microloan apps during the lockdown as he could not commit any offences due to the ban on movement of trains across the country.
After arresting Singh at Secunderabad, the Railway police seized reserved tickets from him that were scheduled non-stop for the next few days.
Police found that Singh, who had travelled from Ludhiana to Hyderabad via Delhi, Bhopal, Nagpur, had planned his return from Hyderabad via Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Berhampur, Odisha and to Delhi and then to Ludhiana. Singh used this route and break journeys to dodge the police.
During the first week of February, he had booked tickets to Hyderabad but dropped the plan midway. When he did arrive in Hyderabad in the last week of February, he had committed two offences in two days but then landed in the police net.