CCTV camera helps nab thief at Railway Station

CHENNAI: Footages from the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) camera at the Chennai Beach Railway Station, helped nab a 57-year-old man who made away with a youth’s bag containing costly gadgets, some days ago.    Within a week of the incident, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Government Railway Police (GRP) restored the stolen articles to the owner. On the eve of Christmas, Kiran (name changed) reportedly was at the Chennai Beach railway station waiting for a train. He was returning from a late evening booze party and had dozed off at the railway station. When the 25-year-old woke up, he discovered his bag containing a laptop, an iphone and a mobile phone missing. He lodged a complaint with the RPF. Based on the complaint, the RPF personnel pulled out a footage from the CCTV camera and stumbled upon the visuals of a man aged between 55 and 60 years making away with the bag, even as the drunk youth was in deep slumber. With this clue, the RPF men began their hunt for the accused."Six days later, we nabbed the accused at the same station, when he was roaming around on the premises," said S R Gandhi, Senior Divisional Security Commissioner, Chennai Division, Southern Railway. "The CCTV camera has come in handy for us to solve the case," he added.The accused was identified as 57-year-old Sudhakar from Chennai. A first-time offender, he reportedly hid the bag containing the gadgets in his house. The stolen articles were later recovered by the police. The GRP at Egmore have booked him for theft under Section 379 of the IPC.Meanwhile, in another incident, RPF personnel apprehended a man who had earlier stolen a laptop, in a moving train. The accused had stolen the laptop from Puducherry earlier this week.  According to a senior official, the man, clad in a lungi, was commuting by an express train towards Jolarpet with the stolen laptop.On suspicion, the RPF men on escort duty in the train questioned him. The man reportedly confessed that he had stolen the laptop from Puducherry. The laptop was returned to the owner subsequently, the official added.