Chennai: Five more people involved in the heist of '5.78 crore on a moving Salem-Chennai Express train in August 2016 were arrested by the CB-CID police on Tuesday, taking the total number nabbed in the case to seven.
The men, identified as H. Mohar Singh, Rusi Pardi, S. Kaliya, P. Mahesh Pardi and N. Bittiya were produced before the XI Metropolitan Magistrate court in Saidapet. They were given 14 days in custody for interrogation, police sources said.
The CB-CID special teams travelled across the country and cracked the case early this month with the arrest of two persons on October 12. The accused were identified as B. Dinesh (38) and R. Rohan Pardi (29) from Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh. The rest were lodged in several prisons across MP.
According to CBCID, H. Mohar Singh, P. Rusi Pardi, S. Kaliya Pardi, P. Mahesh Pardi were taken under custody from Guna Central prison in MP and N. Brajmohan Pardi was taken to custody from Ashok Nagar prison.
The five men were brought to Chennai on the Prisoner Transit warrant and produced before the Saidapet magistrate court and were granted 14 days’ police custody to TN CBCID for interrogation.
Preliminary enquiries with two men, arrested on October 12, revealed that the gang members travelled atop the moving train and drilled a hole on the roof of the parcel van between Chennai-Salem and Vriddhachalam railway stations on the night of August 8, 2016. Two of the gang members entered the van through the hole, broke open the wooden boxes, took cash bundles and wrapped them in coloured dhotis. When the train was arriving at Vriddhachalam station, the members, who were on top of the roof, gave the bundles to others on the ground and fled, officials, said. Going by the mobile phones that were active in the scene of the crime, investigators believe that four to five men, broke open the roof of the coach as the train moved from Salem to Villupuram.
