The Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel arrested a notorious criminal allegedly involved in several looting of passengers on trains and assault on Rail properties the other day. The accused, according to RPF personnel, confessed having involved in looting of passengers on trains and other illegal acts. The arrested identified as Imran alias Sahan Seth, who hails from Gondia, according RPF, was wanted in connection with loot and assault of a passenger and other crimes was picked from his hideout on Thursday.
RFP started a manhunt for Seth and one of his accomplices in connection with the loot and assault a passenger Jairam Rahagdale (21) resident of Barasivni in Balaghat district last week. The victim, RPF said, boarded Itwari-Tatanagar Passenger train from Kalumna station to Gondia reached there at late night and was waiting for a train to his next destination. Meanwhile, Seth along with his friend who is still in hiding assaulted him with a sharp edged weapon and looted Rs7300 and other articles including clothes and made their escape good.
Even though, he sounded alarm and the RPF personnel on duty came to his rescue. However, they could not be caught. The incident took place on April 2. Since then, the RPF personnel were on their look out and finally they got a tip off that the accused were hiding somewhere near Gondia and conducted a raid in which Seth was taken into custody and his accomplice is still at large. The RPF personnel later handed him over to the Government Railway Police (GRP) for further action which registered an offence under Section 392, 397 and 34 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and started further investigations.
It may be noted that RPF of Bilaspur, Raipur and Nagpur Divisions in the last two months registered 47 cases and arrested about 73 people for illegal activities including theft of Railway properties. RPF recovered Railway property worth Rs1.35 lakhs from their possession. In various drives against unauthorised passengers, RPF detained about 6788 people and recovered fine up to Rs22.28 lakhs from them.