Train passengers drugged and robbed

A total of thirteen passengers from Bangalore on board the New Delhi-bound Karnataka Express were reportedly drugged and robbed of their belongings.

According to police, the thirteen passengers, all men, were found unconscious in their compartment at Guntakal on Wednesday, a couple of hours after the train left Bangalore. Their baggage and tickets were also missing.

Co-passengers, who found them unconscious at Hindupur, alerted the Railway police. The unconscious passengers were carried out of the train at Guntakal and admitted to a Government hospital.

“The identity of the unconscious passengers is yet to be ascertain. As their luggage is missing, we can’t identify them. They were all in the general compartment. They are undergoing treatment and doctors have opined that will regain consciousness only by Friday”, an official said.

The police suspect the victims to have consumed biscuits laced with sedatives offered by unidentified miscreants. After the victims lost consciousness within minutes of eating the biscuits, the miscreants may have picked up their baggage and got off the train.

Railway police claimed that this was the second such incident in the last one month. On June 5, a Bangalore-based software professional was robbed of his valuables on the Bangalore-bound Kakinada Express in a similar fashion.

The victim Veeranna, 28, who was returning home from Mehboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh was offered tea by miscreants. He regained consciousness in a hospital several hours after the Railway police found him unconscious in his train compartment.