To track down the stolen shoes of a 20-year-old girl, the daughter of a senior railway official, the Government Railway Police (GRP), Railway Protection Force (RPF), and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) reportedly joined forces. An investigation that lasted more than a month eventually found the woman who had got down from the Lucknow Mail at Bareilly wearing the girl’s shoes.
“We checked the January 4 CCTV footage of the entry and exit gates of Bareilly station but did not find any trace of the woman. We then sought help from the IRCTC officials to provide us with reservation details of the passengers of the AC first-class coach. It worked, and we zeroed in on the suspect,” Deputy SP (Bareilly GRP) Devi Dayal said.
The shoes valued at Rs. 10,000, which were allegedly taken from the train’s first-class AC compartment, were successfully located by the investigation team. The authorities also determined that they were not stolen but were accidentally taken by a fellow traveller in a haste to deboard the train.
“The woman told us she mistakenly wore the shoes when she got down at Bareilly station at around 3.45 am on January 4. She was in the same AC coach compartment in which the daughter of Vineet Singh, the Divisional Railway Manager at Odisha, was travelling along with her mother. She has accepted her mistake,” the GRP official stated, adding that the action will be taken as per the law.
The GRP (Bareilly) informed that on January 5, Divisional Railway Manager (East Coast Railway Zone) Vineet Singh reported a theft at Sambhalpur, Odisha, on behalf of her daughter, alleging that on January 4, her shoes, valued at Rs. 10,000, were taken from the AC first-class coach of the Lucknow Mail.
The complainant expressed suspicion about a female passenger who disembarked at Bareilly. The complaint claimed that the woman left her worn-out, pink-coloured shoes behind.
“Since the daughter of the senior railway official suspected that the woman who got down from the train at Bareilly junction could have taken her shoes, the complaint was transferred to us by the third week of January,” said Ajit Pratap Singh, in-charge of the GRP at Bareilly railway station.”
The train arrived at UP’s Bareilly station at 3 in the morning on the day of the incident, January 4, Wednesday. The investigators made an effort to find the female passenger who had descended at Bareilly.
They located the woman by looking through the train’s reservation chart. According to the reports, they discovered that the woman works as a doctor in Delhi.
It was unequivocally established that it was a true case of an accident after the officers called and spoke with the doctor. As the train approached her destination, the woman was dozing off. However, she woke up as the train halted in Bareilly. The doctor stepped off the train wearing the wrong shoes because of the dimmed lights. The officers started the process to send the shoes back to their senior’s daughter as soon as the doctor returned them.
