Travelling by mail or express train is now fraught with danger, after numerous reports of conmen befriending passengers, drugging them and looting their possessions.
On January 18, 2008, the CST railway cops found 31-year-old Pramod Varshney, an employee of Bhopal-based newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, unconscious in the Mumbai-bound Punjab Mail. Varshney boarded the train’s S-2 coach the previous day at 6 pm, from Bhopal.
Four to five youths, who had boarded the same coach from Delhi, befriended him, and offered him a soft drink at Khandwa station; Varshney fell unconscious after drinking it, and the gang stole Rs5,000, a mobile phone and a return ticket to Bhopal from him.
On October 10, 2008, the railway police found Kulmani Sahu, 29, a primary teacher with a school in Orissa, unconscious on the Devgiri Express at CST. A passenger who had boarded from Nanded befriended him and offered tea. Sahu gained consciousness after three days. His luggage containing Rs2,200 in cash, a phone and clothes, was stolen.
On January 13, this year, Mohammad Sayyed Aurangzeb, 27, a salesman with a private shoe manufacturing company in Mumbai, went to Agra. He boarded the Punjab Mail’s S-2 coach from Agra. His co-passenger offered him tea. After drinking it, he lost unconsciousness till the train reached CST the next day. He was rushed to St George Hospital by the railway cops. Rs6,000 in cash, and his Nokia cell phone had been stolen from him.
Mumbai railway police commissioner Ashok Sharma said, “The offence seldom takes place in our jurisdiction. The GRP found the uncouncious victims in the mail/express trains that arrived in Mumbai. They were admitted to hospitals and cases were registered.” In 2008, 26 such cases were registered, and nine were detected.
“We intensify patrolling by plainclothes and uniformed policemen in mail and express trains leaving Mumbai to control such offences,” said BS Sidhu, chief security commissioner, RPF (Central Railway).
