Absconding pointsman arrested after police recover two liquor stashes on Railway premises in Vadodara

Following this, he was re-arrested in the first case.

Superintendent of Police (SP), Western Railway, Vadodara, Abhay Soni said Shaikh had been absconding ever since the first case surfaced and was nabbed on Monday, based on a tip-off that he had arrived in the city.

Soni said, “We had received a tip-off that he had arrived in the city. He was picked up from Navayard area… He was first arrested in the September 3 case, of the second stash of alcohol retrieved from the overhead water tank on the railway premises. The court rejected our remand application but we re-arrested him on Tuesday, in the first case of the stash of IMFL worth Rs 38.02 lakh recovered from the Memu loco shed.”

Shaikh will be produced again in the court on Wednesday for remand. “This is in order to undertake a deeper probe… We will ascertain how long he had been involved in the crime from the railway premises,” said SP Soni.

Shaikh was arrested by a team of officers, which tracked him down using human and technical intelligence, in the case lodged at the Vadodara Railway police on September 3.

The GRP had recovered a total of 2,304 beer cans worth Rs 5.06 lakh, with a total of 1,152 litres of beer, from the basement area of an overhead water tank. The stash was discovered during a check carried out on the premises, just days after the Government Railway Police (GRP) had recovered a total of 9,143 bottles of Indian-Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) worth Rs 38.09 lakh, totalling to 2,112 litres of alcohol from the MEMU car shed in the vicinity on August 30.

According to officials of the Western Railway, a team of the Engineering department, which accompanied the GRP that was undertaking the drive, the gate of the water tank had a private lock, which was broken down to allow the police to enter and check the premises.

The GRP had booked Shaikh and declared him as wanted in the case. According to the police, Shaikh has a history of crime and was previously arrested in a case of murder in 2018 by the Vadodara Railway Police as well as in various cases of Prohibition and assault at different police stations in the district.

The Western Railway had confirmed to The Indian Express that Shaikh was appointed as a pointsman in the MEMU carshed. As part of a departmental action initiated by the Western Railway, Shaikh was suspended from his position, following the two cases lodged against him, earlier this month.