Heist on Ananthapuri Express: Two held in West Bengal, Bihar for stealing diamonds worth Rs 3 cr

CHENNAI: Two men in connection with the theft of diamond jewellery worth Rs 3 crore from the Ananthapuri Express have been arrested by a special team of the Tambaram Railway Police in West Bengal and Bihar.

The arrested men have been identified as Amarnath Jaiswal (64), a notorious railway robber, and his associate Rajan Kumar.

While Jaiswal was arrested in Siliguri in West Bengal, Kumar was arrested in Patna in Bihar. Police recovered 4 lakh cash from Kumar. However, the stolen diamond jewellery has not yet been recovered.

Police are now searching for two more suspects – Ranjan Kumar and Ashok Kumar – who are believed to have been involved in the robbery.

Deepak Sanchetti (47), a resident of Vepery, works as a manager at a diamond and gold jewellery showroom in T Nagar. On July 23, he travelled from Madurai to Chennai on Ananthapuri Express carrying sample diamond jewellery worth around 3 crore in a bag.

On the morning of July 24, before reaching Tambaram, Deepak noticed that the bag was missing and filed a complaint with the Tambaram Railway Police. Since an Apple Watch was inside the stolen bag, police tracked its location and found that it was showing between Tiruchy and Vriddhachalam. Based on this clue, special teams examined CCTV footage and passenger details and found that Jaiswal, along with Ranjan and Ashok, had travelled in the same coach as Deepak. A special team arrested Jaiswal in West Bengal and arrested him with the help of local police. Another team travelled to Patna and arrested Kumar.

During interrogation, police found that Jaiswal had 36 cases against him at various railway police stations in the country. Police said he was known for travelling along with passengers and stealing their belongings within a short span of time.

Police suspect that when Deepak had gone to the washroom between Tiruchy and Vriddhachalam, the accused had stolen the bag, taken the jewellery from the bag in the train toilet and transferred it to their own bags before throwing the original with the Apple Watch out of the moving train.

Police said they had travelled up to Chennai and later contacted Kumar, who was called to Chennai by flight and handed over the stolen jewellery.