Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Dec 16: Following in a spate of such incidents in which passengers moving on Konkan Railway route are becoming victims of a racket which befriends fellow passengers, provides them food or beverages mixed with drugs to make them unconscious, and then decamps with their valuables, another person from the district fell prey to the ulterior designs of these robbers. In spite of awareness being spread by the concerned not to accept eatables offered by strangers, railway passengers from the region, particularly hailing from rural region, continue to be gullible to the evil designs of the looters.

The recent victim has been identified as Bhaskar Suvarna from Pilar near Padubidri, who is a Mudarangady-based entrepreneur. He had left from Padubidri railway station for Mumbai to take part in a marriage function there. The train he boarded was bound for Ahmedabad. Bhaskar Suvarna had called his wife over his mobile phone from Goa, to tell her that he was travelling in the cramped general compartment, as he could not secure seat in the reserved compartments. After this call, his mobile phone went dead.

Bhaskar Suvarna did not get down from the train at Mumbai. The railway police, who found him in an unconscious state in the train after it reached Ahmedabad, admitted him to a hospital. The police contacted a person from Mudarangady, whose number was found in a visiting card in Suvarna’s possession.

Bhaskar Suvarna's family thereafter alerted their relatives in Mumbai, who went to Ahmedabad to take care of their ailing relative. Suvarna's relatives said that three gold finger rings, a chain and a gold bracelet had been robbed.