Begin typing your search...
RPF men, railway staff involved in parcel scam
Impounded goods taken away despite office supervisor’s plea; racketeers threatened commercial inspector too
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
The ‘theft’ at the railway parcel office in Chennai Central was a cover up of a scam run for long by a network of parcel staff, agents and a few RPF personnel.
The five railway employees who were suspended for ‘missing’ parcels seem to have scooted off with 11 garment parcels not just to make some quick buck but also to cover their tracks in the parcel scam.
Railway insider’s privy to the scam revealed to DT Next that the impounded parcels were forcibly taken away despite office supervisor Sampathram pleading with them not to do so. In fact, the chief commercial inspector Chandrasekhar who had identified the 11 unclaimed parcels on the platform during his inspection was even intimidated by the suspended deputy chief ticketing inspector Yuvaraj, branch secretary of SRMU at Chennai Central.
The trade union was understood to have interfered only after the supervisor refused to oblige the agent who had vainly approached him thrice.
“The parcels were proof that they were running a scam. Also, the goods once sent to the railway store under suspicion cannot be recovered easily, which would be a great loss to the agent’s customer and hence the theft,” a railway source in parcel officer revealed, attributing the hurry shown by the staff more than the agent to revelation of the modus operandi of the scamsters, who were sending parcels in excess of the booked volume by splitting them in to batches and dispatching them in different train on different days from the date of booking.
RPF admits excess parcels were split and sent in batches
Officers also suspect the involvement of RPF personnel without whose knowledge the goods cannot leave the parcel office.
“Nothing can cross the exit gate on Wall Tax Road without stamp of approval of RPF. How did they manage to move 11 parcels on a truck without them knowing it?” a SR officer wondered.
Meanwhile, inquiries made with RPF officers confirmed the MO of the scamsters. An RPF officer who claimed that CCTV footages did not show any consignment of the said nature leaving the campus on the said night and the duty constables were being inquired one by one, admitted under condition of anonymity that, “Trains were available on the evening of November 8 and the following morning and evening. Why did the 11 parcels wait till November 10? We suspect they might have brought it to send excess goods as usual. It is common for agents to book 30 and send up to 60 by splitting them in to batches, which will be sent on different trains using same invoice with the support of parcel staff.”
In fact, the RPF officer asserted that the 30 parcels were sent on November 8 as was stated on records, which contradicts the “missing memo” issued to the suspended staff by the commercial department, and the 11 parcels may have been brought to be sent for free as usual.
The officer also disclosed that the MO was introduced by the staff-agent-constable network after the earlier under and over weighing of goods at parcel offices resulted in an extensive probe by CBI.
Heavy pressure to drop suspension of five staff
The parcel office scam at Chennai Central may have exposed a few high-profile skeletons in the closet.
Some big names were doing rounds in Southern Railway (SR) circles ever since a casual inspection left five staff suspended and a few RPF personnel summoned. It has been reliably learnt that commercial department was pressurised from the divisional headquarters to not suspend the five staff, mainly deputy CTI and branch secretary of SRMU D Yuvaraj, who is a relative of the union general secretary N Khannaiah.
Railway sources in the know said that efforts were being made to revoke the suspension and give clean chit to the staff after a usual inquiry in a fortnight.
Sources in the parcel department, in fact, forecast that the 11 parcels could mysteriously reappear on a platform in a few days so that the case could be closed, as it had happened a year ago.
“A parcel from a neighbouring state remained unclaimed for nearly two months. The consignor who turned up later refused to pay the penalty. The very next day the parcel went missing. A clerk noticed one of the employees of a parcel agent moving suspiciously around the same parcel the day before it went missing. A few days later the clerk captured the person and handed him over to RPF,” said a railway source.
“A week later RPF personnel informed that a parcel bearing the same invoice number lay on the platform. No one knew what was inside the reappeared parcel.
The consignor never returned to claim the parcel again. The case was closed,” the source disclosed, doubting the claim of RPF that no parcel went missing and CCTV showed nothing.
Collusion of RPF staff could not be easily dismissed given that the commercial department had issued “missing memo” to the suspended staff, and that too based on a preliminary report presented on the issue by a divisional commercial manager.
Worse, inquiries revealed that a few CCTV cameras at RPF and parcel offices have been dysfunctional for a while and grabs of the CCTV installed by the city corporation and traffic department at the exit of parcel office could reveal the identity of the outsiders and the truck used to steal the parcels.
Officers confided that big names would tumble once RPF was brought under the inquiry radar and the role of trade union office bearers holding posts in parcel department were probed.
Visit news.dtnext.in to explore our interactive epaper!
Download the DT Next app for more exciting features!
Click here for iOS
Click here for Android
Next Story
