The accused were nabbed from Mangala Express in Maharashtra
The Railway Police have arrested three persons on charges of drugging and robbing gold and mobile phones from three women while travelling in the Hazrat Nizamuddin-Thiruvananthapuram Central Superfast Express on September 12.
The accused have been identified as Shoukath Ali (51), Khayam (47) and Subair (50), all natives of West Bengal. An eight member Railway Police team from Kerala, led by Inspector Abhilash David, nabbed the three in Maharashtra from the Mangala Express heading towards Ernakulam.
The incident came to light when Railway Protection Force (RPF) officers found the victims in a disoriented state inside a sleeper-class compartment of the train when it reached Thiruvananthapuram Central early on September 12.
Gold, phone stolen
According to the officials, 10 sovereigns of gold and two mobile phones were stolen from Vijayalakshmi and her daughter, Aishwarya from Thiruvalla, and Kousalya of Tamil Nadu. While the mother-daughter duo who have settled in Agra were supposed to disembark at Kayamkulam, Kousalya was to get down at Aluva. It was suspected that they were drugged through the food or water they had consumed in the train.
The Railway Police team had initially received information that the alleged robbers had headed to Kolkata through Goa. Although they headed to Kolkata, the police were also parallelly tracking three names they had gathered from a reservation chart of a Nagercoil-bound train, in which a similar incident had happened last month. While tracking the names, they received information that the same set of persons had reserved seats from Agra on the Mangala Express. The police team also got on the train and nabbed the accused while the train was passing through Maharashtra.
"All of them possessed fake id cards, using which they had reserved tickets. Now, recovery of the stolen gold and mobile phones is remaining. The accused are claiming that they had sold these in Kolkata. A police team will head to Kolkata to recover the items," said Mr. Thaha.
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