In the wake of recent incidents of passengers being robbed after being drugged by strangers on the trains, an urgent meeting of Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) was held in Amritsar on Wednesday.
The meeting was chaired by Parveen Kumar Kanda, GRP superintendent of police, investigations, and attended by Surender Pal Singh, deputy superintendent of police, operations, Patiala, along with other senior railway security officials from Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar.
Three special teams to curb and nab the gang which is mainly active at Amritsar to Ambala railway line have been formed following the orders of Kanda.
“A total of 30 GRP personnel, including ten men each from Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana respectively have been included in the special task force which will remain vigilant in the trains and at the railway stations in civil dress,” a GRP official said.
The teams will mainly board the trains ferrying the migrants to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh during the Holi week.
According to the officials, such incidents are expected to spike amid Holi as a large number of migrants would return to their native villages to celebrate the festival.
{{/usCountry}}According to the officials, such incidents are expected to spike amid Holi as a large number of migrants would return to their native villages to celebrate the festival.
{{/usCountry}}The recent incidents highlighted that mainly migrants became an easy prey to such gangs in the trains plying on the long routes.
GRP here has been directed to install awareness boards at the key places of the Ludhiana railway station.
“The boards will be installed to appeal to the public to not accept any food items from strangers as that could even prove fatal,” inspector Jaskaran Singh, GRP, said.
Meanwhile, the investigating teams have rounded up a few gang members who were earlier involved in such robberies. Moreover, the CCTV footage of a few suspects are also being gathered for scrutiny.
A senior RPF official, part of the anti-poisoning staff, said a new gang is operational on the aforesaid railway line as the photos of the suspects were not recognised by the accused already in the prisons.
Recent incidents
In a recent incident, six passengers who boarded the Amritsar-Darbhanga train were robbed and drugged in the train on March 7 evening. They were offered sweets by strangers near Jalandhar after which they fell unconscious near Ludhiana Railway Station. The victims were identified as Sanjay Rai, Munna Kumar, Ramakant, Naseerudin Ansari, Raju and Sudhir.
Last month, two brothers were drugged and robbed of their belongings on Karmabhumi Express by a fellow passenger from whom they had accepted sweets. The incident came to light when the train reached Ambala railway station and the travelling ticket examiner (TTE) found them unconscious. The victims identified as Inderdev and Mithlesh Kumar, natives of Bihar, had boarded the train from Jalandhar to reach their hometown for a relative’s wedding.
In another case, a 37-year-old Ram Vilas was allegedly robbed near the Ludhiana Railway Station on February 25 after his drink was spiked by two unidentified men.