BAHAWALPUR: The railway police Sammasatta claimed to have arrested a man and his son who stole cash owned by the State Bank of Pakistan from a goods train and also recovered from their possession Rs4.9 million.

The police also tracked down two accomplices (his another son and a son-in-law) of main suspect Muhammad Sadiq Sial, a railway station cabin man.

At a joint press conference at Sammasatta on Tuesday, DSP Syed Asad Abbas of Railway Police, Multan Division and Malik Fayyaz Ahmed, SHO Sammasatta railway police station, told media that a joint team of Sammasatta and Khanewal got clue to the suspects with the help of an informer and geo-fencing.

They said suspected calls from Sadiq’s mobile phones were also traced. According to DSP, Sadiq had some information from Karachi about the loading of boxes carrying Rs17 billion by the Pakistan Security Printing Press, Karachi.

When the goods train reached the Sammasatta railway yard after midnight on Feb 10, Sadiq, his two sons Muhammad Sajid and Muhammad Majid and his son-in-law Muhammad Zubair committed the offence under the cover of darkness and due to alleged negligence of the police guard accompanying the goods train.

They said the other two suspects would be arrested soon.

The suspects stole Rs5 million from the boxes after unsealing the goods train wagon. Although cash in-charge Tanveer Hassan came to know about this theft, the FIR was registered four days after the counting of the stolen currency was made in Faisalabad.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2021