Railway cops loot jeweller at Mumbai Central, suspended after CCTV exposes Rs 30k extortion

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Two days after the Government Railway Police (GRP) registered a case against three men suspected of impersonating police and extorting Rs 30,000 from a jeweller at Mumbai Central Railway station, it was revealed on Tuesday that the accused were actually GRP personnel, leading to their suspension by the commissioner, Hindustan Times reported.

According to officials, the crime branch of the GRP checked CCTV footage to track down two of the accused, while the third was identified through the statements of four other GRP members. These four are also suspected of having links to the crime and have since been transferred to the GRP headquarters at Wadi Bunder. Meanwhile, the assistant sub-inspector and two constables directly involved in the robbery are currently on the run.

The incident happened on August 10, around 10.30 pm, when Kamal Soni, a jeweller from Rajasthan, was at the station with his daughter and brother-in-law. He was preparing to board a train back home after attending a gold exhibition in the city. Two men dressed in khaki uniforms approached him, claiming they needed to check his bag.

Inside his bag, Soni carried Rs 31,900 in cash and a 14-gram gold bar. He later recalled that the men, who were seated on a bench meant for police staff, became aggressive once they found the valuables. One of them slapped him in front of his seven-year-old daughter and hurled abuses. They then dragged him to a dark room on the platform, where he was held for half an hour and threatened with arrest unless he handed over the money.

Soni said that since he did not want to miss his train and see his daughter traumatised, he let the men take the money. “They returned Rs 1,900 to me. I then boarded my train,” he said. An FIR was registered on Sunday at Ratangard police station and then transferred to Mumbai Central GRP.

After Soni wrote to the authorities, the Mumbai Central GRP booked three unidentified men under Section 119 (1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita. They were later identified as GRP personnel.