5 held for stealing passengers' articles from AC coaches

Five persons, including a woman, were arrested for posing as passengers to steal articles of passengers after boarding AC coaches at various railway stations located in the national capital, police said on Friday.

"Ashwani, Aashiq Malik, Rajeev Kumar Gupta, Irfan and Manju are residents of Delhi. They were arrested on Wednesday from Mandoli Extension in north Delhi when they came to dispose of the stolen articles," said Additional Commissioner of Police Rajiv Ranjan.

"A sophisticated revolver and over 25 stolen bags and over Rs 90,000 were recovered from them. The gang headed by Rajeev Kumar Gupta had been active in New Delhi, Hazrat Nizammudin, Sarai Rohilla and Anand Vihar railway stations for the past one year," Ranjan said.

"Their interrogation revealed that Manju and Rajeev Kumar Gupta pretended to be passengers and entered railway stations with valid platform tickets. They targeted innocent passengers and small children in AC coaches," the officer said.

"They dressed up nicely and joined the co-passengers posing as genuine travelers with small luggage. When the train would gather speed, and other passengers got busy bidding good bye to their relatives, the accused would steal their articles and swiftly leave the train, pretending that they boarded a wrong train," he added.

--IANS

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