RailEnquiry

The Railway Police has arrested six members of a gang, all residents of Sholapur district in Maharashtra, for their alleged involvement in the theft of over 12 kg of gold jewellery on a moving train near Erode on September 23.The special teams formed to crack the case recovered 208 gm of the stolen jewellery and are searching for four more members of the gang and the remaining jewellery.The gang had stolen the jewellery from three employees of a Chennai-based wholesale jewellery store — Varadharam, Madhan Singh and Jitendra Singh — on the Thiruvananthapuram-Chennai Express around 2 am.The employees claimed that before going to sleep, they had kept the jewellery in two suitcases, which were, in turn, secured to the seats using a chain and a lock. A few unidentified persons cut the chain and decamped with the suitcases. The employees reported the incident to the Erode railway police and a case was registered.Railway police formed six special teams, headed by Deputy Superintendent of Police K. Rajavel. The probe led them to Sholapur.The teams arrested the leader of the gang Sunil Jaswant Jadav (24), Gaga Sahib (19), Rajaram Digamber Dikole (44), Devrao Ram Kunjal (41) and Shivaraj Samrao Kunjal (23), all residents of Madha, Kurduwadi, Karmala and a few other areas of Solapur district.
“Our teams found the two suitcases with 208 gm of gold jewellery from the houses of these persons. We are looking for four more persons who have been involved in the robbery,” Inspector General of Police, Railways, R. Arumugam told reporters here on Sunday.

Apart from the jewels, police also seized three cars, cutters and other tools used for stealing the gold on the train.

Mr. Arumugam said the leader of the gang purchased a tractor worth Rs. 7 lakh by selling the stolen jewels, and another member of the gang acquired land worth over Rs. 1.5 crore.

“The investigation is still on. We will trace all the persons who purchased the jewellery from the gang and take steps to recover all the stolen jewellery. We are yet to conduct a full-scale interrogation and more personnel will be sent to Sholapur to recover the jewellery, based on the information obtained from the arrested persons,” he said.

Mr. Arumugam, while appreciating the members of the special teams, appealed to the passengers who were planning to carry huge quantity of jewellery, cash or valuables on trains to give prior information to the railway police. “We will send armed personnel along with such passengers,” he said.