The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Railway police meeting on biscuit bandit menace

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 27, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Railway police meeting on biscuit bandit menace

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Southern Railway has convened a meeting of officers of the Railway Protection Force and the railway police in the four southern States on Friday on preventing the menace of "biscuit bandits" in running trains.

Of late, there has been an increase in incidents of theft in trains by biscuit bandit gangs.

The modus operandi of the gangs is to travel in unreserved compartments and offer sedative mixed biscuits or cool drinks to co-passengers. After the passengers become unconscious they relieve them of their valuables.

Despite the railway administration appealing through the media and the public address systems in stations to passengers not to accept eatables from unknown fellow passengers, incidents of such theft had been increasing.

Two persons became victim to one of the gangs on Thursday morning. The two, whose identity is yet to be ascertained, were coming here from New Delhi by the Tamil Nadu Express. They were found in an unconscious state in the train by the railway employees at the Central station. They were admitted to the General Hospital here. As the two were yet to regain consciousness, the police could not get details.

According to official sources, the railway police here registered cases as soon as the incidents were reported and then transferred them to stations where the gang boarded the train. Thereafter, nothing was heard about the case. This, the sources said, was due to lack of coordination among the police and the RPF in other States. Friday's meeting would discuss how to bring coordination among the police officials, the sources said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu