Vijayawada: Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel of Vijayawada Division apprehended a notorious offender who is notorious in Theft of Passenger Belongings (ToPB) which led to detection of 15 ToPB offences and recovered 1kg Gold valued at Rs. 20.50 lakhs.
Going into the details of the case, on February 15, 2018, an incident of theft occurred in A1 coach of Train no 13352 Alappuzha-Dhanbad Bokaro Express in between Kavali and ongole stations in which a handbag containing gold, mobile phone and cash worth Rs 5.5 lakh was stolen and the complaint of the same was reported to RPF.
After obtaining details of the incident, a joint team of RPF personnel of Gudur and Nellore posts was formed under guidance of Inspector, RPF, Nellore Post. The team started tracking the stolen mobile. The trail led to a house in Chirala. The mobile was found in possession of a lady who claimed that the mobile had been given by her husband. She revealed the name of her husband as S Menapati Srinivasan aged 33 years r/o Vijayawada and native of Chirala. She informed that her husband was not staying with her but occasionally visited her.
A hunt was launched for one of the offenders in south section of Vijayawada Division. Subsequently, the description of the offender matched with the description of S Menapati Srinivasan nicknamed Chennai Srinu. Throughout his career, he maintained the base of his operation as Chennai and hence could not land in the net of the joint team. on basis of source information, an ambush was planned at Nellore Railway station on 4th April, 2019, the accused landed in the net of this joint team. During the Interrogation of the accused Police got clues that led to detection of several cases registered by Government Railway Police under different sections.
The Gold ornaments weighing 1023 grams valued at Rs 20,46,000 were recovered from him. The accused used to buy general ticket and boards a few selected trains like Hyderabad-Chennai Express, Circar Express, GT Express, Bokaro Express etc and travels between Chennai and Vijayawada. He manages to get a berth in AC coach and used to roam in coaches and keeps an eye on potential victims, especially those who are over possessive about their bags. At the right opportunity, he used to pick up the luggage of passengers and decamps with the booty. (NSS)
