B’luru: Gang stealing batteries from railway coaches busted

Bengaluru, July 16 (IANS) The Railway Protection Force (RPF) have nabbed a gang of six members involved in theft of batteries from railway coaches stabled at Gollahalli station, a South Western Railway (SWR) official said on Thursday.

The railway zone’s Bengaluru division’s electrical branch has lodged a complaint that that some AC coach batteries went missing on July 2, leading to the start of an investigation by the RPF.

Following some local intelligence leads, the RPF team on the lookout for the thieves managed to arrest two of them from Islampur.

“The third accused was nabbed on July 9th from Golahalli. For further investigation, members of the gang were taken into custody for six days from the special economic offence court in Bengaluru and on interrogation, further leads were obtained,” said the official.

Based on the leads from the investigation of the arrested people, two more gang members who had fled to Tumkur were also arrested at Islampur on Tuesday.

Later, the special task force raided the premises of one of the gang members who received the batteries at Mawalli area of Lalbagh in the city and recovered 15 batteries stolen from the Golahalli railway station.

All the 15 batteries bore the insignia of the Indian Railways and are estimated to be worth Rs 2.7 lakh.

The railway police produced the sixth gang member in the court through a video conference.

–IANS

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