Hi-tech gangs use apps, Web to rob passengers

Hyderabad:Picking pockets or filching jewellery from sleeping passengers in trains is passé. A new generation of gangs has just made robbery on trains more hi-tech. According to railway police officials, several gangs track a potential victim through several stations and replace the passengers’ branded suitcases with empty ones and make off with the loot.

Several such incidences have come to the notice of the police, but most are not busted as the victim does not even realise that there has been a robbery until quite late. The gangs track potential victims right from banks and ATMs or their shops and business establishments to the trains and carry out the loot. These gangs use mobile phone cameras and social media apps to transfer information.

Several trains passing on the South Central Railway, especially those going towards Delhi like Dakshin Express, are the favourite hunting grounds. Other vulnerable trains are Sabari Express to Kochi, the Howrah Chennai Mail. Trains heading towards Visakhapatnam and those on the Guntakal-Mumbai have also been hit by the gangs.

While there were 22 cases of drugging of passengers reported last year, this year the new kind of cases reported are of replacing suitcases and luggage bags instead of just stealing them.

“There is a whole network of gangs who keep track of a potential victim right from the station he boards the train. The men are ready with the similar kind of luggage bag, trolley or suitcase and replace them with the original. By the time the victim finds out that the bag is not his, it is usually too late to track down the gang. In such cases, the victim is not even able to give us basic details like between which stations the robbery happened, as they would be sleeping,” said RPF officer B. Shekhar.