Great Train Robbery: At Chetpet yard, cash wagon was in no man's land'

Chennai: The finger of suspicion keeps pointing to the Chetpet railway yard as the scene of the Great Train Robbery. After reaching Egmore railway station last Tuesday at 4.16 am, the cash wagon filled with Rs 342 crore in currency was taken to the Chetpet yard with the minimum number of policemen who were escorting the coach on the previous night’s journey.

There was no facility for the escort policemen to travel in the coach as the single cash-filled wagon was attached to the locomotive. A few cops from the escort team were asked to travel in the engine. Once it reached the yard, the cops were free to go about their morning routines as the yard was territory controlled and managed by the railways.

The train was actually left standing unguarded in ‘no man’s land’ of sorts making it easier for the perpetrators to execute their robbery and escape with Rs 5.75 crore after making a hole in the roof of the wagon, a police officer, familiar with the case as well as escort procedures, revealed.

It appears nobody ever thinks of what happens to the escort cops after the train reaches Egmore. There is no one to take care of the transport from Egmore to Chetpet, none to make sure that the cops do their morning ablutions without hampering security and finally there is none to even take care of their food needs.

“The Chetpet yard is no man’s land. Police think the railways would take care of the property there. Railway officials believe police would take care of the wagon, but in fact cops will be busy with their morning routines. It would be wrong to assume that the cash wagon was under police watch over the entire five hours in which it was parked in the yard, with no high tension overhead wires either to hamper thieves,” a police officer confessed.

“Technically armed police are in charge of the protection once the cash box leaves a bank’s chest till it reaches the RBI chest. But it’s not always that simple. In between, there are parcel agencies involved as well as railway employees. We believe there will be at least 300 people who were aware, in one way or the other, about the huge cash transfer that was going to take place on that particular train on that specific day,” an officer noted.

CCTV footage fails to throw any more light

Fresh CCTV footage of train wagon with a hole captured on early Saturday morning during a special run from Tambaram to Egmore, which matched the Tuesday morning’s timings of cash filled wagon of Salem — Chennai express from which Rs 5.75 crore was robbed, failed to give any clue.  

“The investigation team could not spot the hole in the fresh footage as well, though there was a hole in the roof of the wagon. So it’s back to square one. We still don’t know where the hole was made, before the train reached Chennai or after it reached Chennai. The question is still unanswered,” police sources said adding that a final report from the lab was yet to receive.

“Only two points in the roof will have space for hole through which a man call slide in. In all other places the roof crisscross which metal skeleton. It looks like the person who made the hole knew about it and correctly made the hole. Either its accidental or well researched,” said an officer.  

Though various conspiracy theories are doing rounds, police are also looking at the possibility of random strike by gang to loot whatever available inside the wagon. “The gang may not aware that there was money inside. They could have decided to give a try thinking that there was something highly valuable in the wagon which is double sealed on four doors and escorted by police,’ noted another officer.

According to one of the policemen who escorted the wagon, bank officials had never disclosed the amount but always referred it as pieces of notes in boxes as all those were soiled notes.

“Only after the robbery took place, the bank officials started talking in amount. If they had stamped all the soiled notes as ‘not usable’ when those notes are received, the notes would have become useless for the robbers as well,” noted an officer.