Not fearing for their lives, five Railway Protection Force [RPF] constables chased a con man across the railway tracks at Byculla during the evening peak hours on Tuesday.
They caught the man, who, posing as a ticket checker, was allegedly on the lookout for ticketless travellers to extort money.
It was around 8.45 pm when the con approached Munawar Ali, 45, who had got off a train from CST on platform No1, asking him for his ticket. Alisensed something fishy about the man, and hollered out ‘chor, chor’.
With the RPF office barely 200 metre away, the man panicked. As the on-duty cops came rushing out, the man jumped on to the tracks.
Seeing him trying to make his escape to platform No4, five RPF constables jumped on to the tracks ignoring the train coming in on platform No1. Chasing the man across the tracks, they saw him leap on to the platform and disappear into the crowd.
Reaching the other side, the cops vainly tried to locate the man in the crowd on platform No4. Refusing to give up, they went outside the station, and found the con trying to hail a taxi. He was caught and brought to the RPF office.
After Ali confirmed that he was indeed the one who had asked for him for ticket, the man was handed over to the CST railway police.
Inspector Ajay Sansare of RPF office, Byculla, said, “Seeing the man fleeing across thetracks, I told my staff to chase him. The five constables who went after him were Farhan Ahmed, DS Jadhavwar, BA Patil, DS Shukla and JK Ingale. The con was identified as Sheikh Sajid Gafoor, 32, a resident of Kurla (West).”
NC Padhi, senior divisional security commandant of RPF, Central Railway, said, “The five constables will soon be suitable rewarded.”
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