WB man who drugged, robbed passengers nabbed

The man was identified as A Subhankar Chakraborty of Hooghly district in West Bengal, who has similar cases against him in other States. “His modus operandi is to befriend and drug lone passengers before escaping with their valuables,” said police.

Subhankar Chakraborty has been arrested nearly a month after he robbed a railway engineer, Amit Kumar, of five sovereigns. On July 18, Amit Kumar was found lying unconscious in the sleeper class of Howrah Express when the train reached Central station. He was admitted at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. He told the police that he fell unconscious after consuming the food he brought from home, but added that a man wearing a yellow t-shirt travelled alone with him for quite a distance.

When they checked the CCTV footage recorded on July 18, police identified the person in yellow t-shirt as he had other cases against him and nabbed him.

Investigation revealed that Subhankar mixed drugs in Amit Kumar’s food when the latter got down at a station to purchase snacks. “He used Ativan – 2mg tablet and laced them in the snacks and offered them to the passengers. If co-passengers refuse to acknowledge his offer, he mixed the drugs with the food items they carried when they are not around,” said an SR official.

He sold the valuables in Mumbai, Lucknow, and Howrah, and led a luxurious life with his friends. During his arrest, nine bottles containing chemicals and 60 tablets were seized from him. He has been remanded to judicial custody. Railway police have urged the passengers not to eat biscuits or other items offered by strangers during train journeys.