Eight armed dacoits loot 20 Mumbaikars on board the city-bound train

MUMBAI: The rhythmic motion of the train had lulled them into sleep. Suddenly, there was a screeching halt and some were jolted awake. Then, came the nightmare.

Eight armed robbers, four among them in their teens, entered an air-conditioned three-tier sleeper coach of the Varanasi-Mumbai Ratangiri Superfast Express. They came from the adjoining sleeper coach, through the vestibule, said the victims. The gang looted 30 passengers — 20 of them from Mumbai — to the tune of Rs10 lakh, seizing everything they could lay hands on: cash, jewellery, mobiles, ATM cards.

The incident happened around 1.30am on Wednesday, when the train was passing through an isolated wooded stretch between Shankargadh in Uttar Pradesh and Manekpur in Madhya Pradesh.

It took the GRP guards on train 20 minutes to come to the passengers’ rescue. Blocking the vestibule, through which the robbers had come in, they fired in the air. The gang quickly made for the other side of the coach, got off it and vanished in the darkness of the night.

Most of the passengers looted were from Mumbai, said railway police sources. They had gone to Varanasi to attend a wedding. The train had left Varanasi on Tuesday evening and was scheduled to reach Kurla terminus on Wednesday night.
Kalyan resident Avdesh Pandey, 30, who was looted, said, “It was around 1.30 am and everyone was fast asleep. Suddenly the train came to a screeching halt at an isolated place. We later came to know that someone had pulled the chain. Immediately after that, four men, with their faces covered and armed with double-barrelled rifles, entered our coach from the adjoining coach through the vestibule.”

Interestingly, the shutter of the AC coach, which is normally closed during night, was open. “Police are investigating whether the shutter was kept open deliberately, or was it a mistake,” Pandey said.

The four were followed by four teenagers, armed with revolvers. “While the men stood guard, the boys snatched valuables from the passengers,” Pandey said. “They started with the passenger on seat No 1 and reached seat No 35 in 20 minutes. By then, someone in our coach had alerted the GRP control room of Satna district, which in turn alerted the GRP guards on board the train.”

The guards quickly surrounded the coach and fired a few rounds in the air. “Hearing the gunshots, the dacoits panicked. One of them shouted, ‘Deepak bhago (Deepak run)’, and they jumped off the train with the loot and vanished in the dark,” Pandey added.

The train was taken to the Manekpur station, where railway police registered the case. The passengers demanded immediate action and refused to let the train resume its journey to Mumbai. After a delay of almost 10 hours, the train resumed its journey. It was scheduled to reach Mumbai on Thursday morning.