A few days ago, a woman from Chennai, who boarded a private omni bus to Madurai, had a shock on arrival, as her bag containing valuables, including her passport went missing.
Without wasting time, when she approached the Anna Nagar police, the personnel issued a CSR certificate and subsequently provided her with an ‘undetectable certificate’ so as to facilitate the complainant to apply for re-issue of a passport. Upon scrutiny of documents, the passport authorities too imposed a fine of Rs.3,000 for missing the document and took steps for issuance of a booklet.
But, the issue did not seem to be a case of just ‘missing’ or something stolen by a person since the woman received a call on her mobile phone two days ago from a person, who demanded Rs.30,000 for returning the valuables, including her passport.
Though shocked, the woman was not keen on tracking the caller as the passport authorities had cancelled the passport as lost.
A discreet probe suggested that the racket posed a big challenge to the police as it was not a stray case, a police officer admitted, and said a month ago a similar case of passport missing complaint came from a traveller from Karaikudi in a similar fashion.
“It looks like an organised crime silently going on in such ‘unrecognised’ private omni buses, wherein a network of persons are behind the operation,” the officer said. The modus operandi was simple.
Persons travelling in an inebriated mood or who (male or female) appear to be carrying valuables are targeted. Under the guise of helpers at the omni bus offices near Egmore or at Koyambedu, the strangers passed on the information to their counterparts in Tiruchi and Madurai bus stands. Wherever these omni buses stopped to offload other consignments, the ‘helpers’ flicked the baggage of those passengers who had left it in the boot and slept off.
When the caller (who had demanded Rs 30,000 from the woman) was traced, the mobile number belonged to a youth, whose tower location pointed towards a refugee camp in Tiruchi district.
Either the omni bus operators should be made accountable for such loss or passengers should be vigilant and not hand over their baggage to strangers to assist them at the time of boarding, the officer suggested.
