Gold, diamonds worth Rs30.44 lakh seized by RPF

Nagpur: The special crime detection squad of Railway Protection Force (RPF), Central Railway, on Sunday intercepted a consignment of gold and diamond jewellery worth Rs30.44 lakh from the agent of a Mumbai-based courier company. The consignment and the agent were later handed over to the income tax department.
This year RPF, under supervision of senior division security commissioner Jyoti Kumar Satija, has managed to seize gold, diamond and precious stones worth around Rs2 crore in five actions. Most of the valuables, as per RPF claims, were accompanied by sale and purchase bills but without other relevant documents which legalize consignments of such valuables being transported in railways.

RPF squad managed to zero down upon Dinesh Kumar Mishra, 26, representing the private logistics company, who was supposed to take the manufactured jewellery to different bullion traders in city, including several big names in west and east Nagpur.

Mishra was caught with the consignment in a bag on platform number 3 near the footover bridge by RPF team comprising constables Vikas Sharma, Usha Tigga, Sushma Dhomne and others. He was brought to the post for questioning before senior inspector Virendra Wankhede was alerted. Mishra had received the consignment from his counterpart travelling in air-conditioned coach of Mumbai-Howrah Express. RPF team nabbed Mishra when he was about to leave the premises after collecting the consignment.

Mishra had earlier been nabbed on December 2 by RPF team, when valuables worth around Rs19 lakh were recovered from him. The name of the Mumbai-based logistics and courier company had come to the fore during the last seizure too.

In another action, RPF nabbed an alleged thief, identified as Vasant Upadhyay, in the early hours of Sunday after he fled with the mobile phone of a passenger near railway booking counter.

In yet another case, RPF intercepted an abandoned consignment of 76 bottles of liquor worth Rs10,080 from the general coach of Andaman Express on Sunday.

Satija said the consignments of jewellery are ferried in railways but no relevant documents are found authorizing such transportation. “We hand over such doubtful consignments to the IT department asking them to conduct further inquiries about taxation and duties being paid by concerned traders. Some jewellery items also do not have any relevant documents like sales or purchase bills,” he said.