Elderly passengers on train, drugged, robbed

• Victims offered buttermilk laced with intoxicants

Udupi: Two elderly passengers in Mangala Lakshadweep Express train running from Delhi to Ernakulum were robbed of cash and jewellery after consuming intoxicant laced buttermilk offered to them by their fellow passengers.

The victims of the robbery have been identified as Kinnimulki residents Railway Yatri Sangha treasurer Ramachandra Acharya (60) and his elder sister Radhamma(75).

Ramachandra Acharya was returning from Nasik to Udupi with Radhamma and two more of his sisters Seema Rao and Tulasi Upadhya who were in another bogey, when the incident happened.

On Thursday, October 11th, Ramachandra along with his three sisters including Radhamma were returning back after taking part in the Vaikunta Samaradhane of the husband of his elder sister at Pejawar Math branch there on Sunday night, October 7th. Ramachandra and Radhamma were in S3 bogie and other two sisters in S2 bogey, during the return journey.

Two unknown persons who were travelling in the same bogie befriended Radhamma and Acharya and introduced themselves as cloth merchants from Delhi travelling to Kerala. As the train reached Chiplun railway station, the two men offered buttermilk to Ramachandra and Radhamma. While Ramachandra only ate half of it and threw the remaining part, Radhamma ate all of it. Soon after consuming the buttermilk, both of them became unconscious.

As the train was reaching Kundapur at 1 am on Friday night, Ramachandra got back to senses. By then the robbers had made off with Rs 15,000 cash from his pocket, another Rs 15,000 from the purse, mobile, three sovereign gold chain of Radhamma, Rs 15,000 cash from Radhamma and new clothes worth Rs 2,000.

Immediately, Ramachandra informed their sisters in the S2 bogie while Radhamma was still in the influence of drug. When the train finally reached Udupi, Radhamma was lifted and brought out when the train and admitted to private hospital in Udupi. She was discharged from the hospital on Saturday.

According to the complaint registered with the railway police, no TE’s had come to check tickets during their journey to Nasik and back. Ramachandra said that there may be more robbers in the train. “Non-verification of tickets makes the robbers easy to go scot-free,” he pointed out.