A gang of robbers cut a hole in the roof of a train traveling through southern India and stole more than US$750,000 in cash, police said yesterday.
The daring heist occurred somewhere along the more than 300km-long journey, but the missing loot was only discovered hours after the train arrived in Chennai.
The train’s mail carriage was carrying 3.4 billion rupees (US$51 million) belonging to India’s central bank and was being escorted by armed police seated in the next compartment.
Police suspect about six to eight robbers made a hole in the carriage roof using a cutting torch before escaping undetected with some of the cash.
“We are inquiring with the train guard and the police personnel if they heard any unusual noises on the roof,” police superintendent P Vijayakumar said.
Police said the robbers might have jumped off the train roof and were combing the tracks along the route in search of any of the missing notes.
“They created a manhole and then they sneaked one after the other and lifted the bundles to the roof before taking them away,” said police inspector general M. Ramasubramani, who is heading the investigation.
Another police officer was quoted in the Hindu newspaper as saying the gang might have hidden themselves in the carriage before it was locked for the journey on Monday night, before escaping through the roof.
Reserve Bank of India officials discovered the theft on Tuesday morning, when they came to collect the cash from the carriage for disposal. The cash, although still usable, was soiled and was transported from the city of Salem to Chennai for destruction.
The audacious crime has echoes of the “Great Train Robbery” of 1963, when a gang of criminals in Britain stopped a night mail train and made off with ￡2.6 million (US$3.4 million at current exchange rates).
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