The Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) arrested a gang of six Haryana based miscreants, who would steal belongings of train passengers, at the Siliguri Junction yesterday.
Sources said the men would commit the crime in different trains in the guise of co-passengers. As the Up-Capital Express arrived at the station, the GRP and RPF found them in the AC B3 coach. They identified them with footage captured in CCTV cameras installed at the platform.
Passengers at the platform could not understand what was going on when they were being taken out.
Sources said four complaints had been filed by passengers with the GRP at the Siliguri Junction since November last year.
“Two complaints were lodged in November, while two more this month. According to the complaints, they had stolen the passengers’ belongings in the Capital Express on 2 May and Kanchankanya Express on 19 May. They were arrested yesterday a day after the last complaint was filed,” a source said.
The accused have been identified as Sanjay Kumar, Rajbir, Bijayandar, Anil Kumar, Satyaban and Sandip.
It is learnt that the accused persons would introduce themselves as army men.
“Some would divert the attention of passengers and others would steal them. One blade, which was used to cut baggages, was found with them. They had boarded the train from Dalkhola with valid tickets. Rajbir and Bijayandar are brothers,” sources said.
They were produced in the Siliguri court today. In order to identify the accused, the complainants will be called during a test identification parade on 29 May, sources said.
IPL betting: Three more arrested
The Siliguri Metropolitan Police arrested three more persons, including a Rajasthan resident, involved in online betting for the Indian Premier League (IPL) after conducting a raid in a residence at Samarnagar in Siliguri last night.
Acting on specific inputs, plainclothes men from the Siliguri and Pradhannagar police stations arrested the trio- -Mohit Agarwal, a resident of Sevoke Road, Akshay Borar of Bikaner, Rajasthan, and Ramesh Nayek of Banarhat. They had taken the house on rent.
Police seized 28 mobile phones, one LED television set, one laptop, a desktop and a bluetooth connector from them.
Sources said that in a plan to nab them, police in the guise of common men had made advance bookings. The investigation found they had several bank accounts.
With them, a total of nine persons have been arrested in the crackdown on IPL betting in Siliguri since 10 May.
The trio was produced in the Siliguri court today. The court remanded them in three days’ police custody, it is learnt.