One held, gold worth Rs 20.5 lakh recovered

Vijayawada: The Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel of Vijayawada Division apprehended a notorious thief and recovered 1 kg gold worth at Rs 20.50 lakh.

It is recalled that 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 the guidance of Inspector, RPF, Nellore Post. The team started tracking the stolen mobile. The trail led to a house in Chirala and found the phone 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 resident of Vijayawada and native of Chirala. She said that her husband was not staying with her but occasionally visited her.

Subsequently, the description of the offender matched with the description of S Menapati Srinivasan nicknamed Chennai Srinu. On a tip of information, an ambush was planned at Nellore railway station on 4th April, 2019 to arrest him. During the interrogation, the police got clues that led to detection of several cases registered by the Government Railway Police under different sections.

The gold ornaments weighing 1,023 gram valued at Rs 20,46,000 were recovered from his possession. The accused used to buy general ticket and boards few selected trains like Hyderabad-Chennai Express, Circar Express, GT Express, Bokaro Express etc and travelled between Chennai and Vijayawada. He manages to get a berth in AC coach and used to roam in coaches to keep an eye on potential victim's baggage and used to pick up the luggage of passengers and abscond.