My Horrifying Train Robbery Experience

Travelling by train was never a horrifying experience for me until one day.

I was travelling by Hatiya-Gorakhpur Express. I was with my husband and a 2-year old son, Saad. This was the first time we were travelling by this train and also the first time to this route.

We bid good bye to our loved ones who came to see us off and boarded our reserved 2^nd tier ac compartment.  As we made our self comfortable I noticed the bogie was almost vacant except for one gentleman who joined us from the same station.

Journey was going on well.  Soon it was night. We took our dinner and started to make sleeping arrangements. By now the bogie was occupied by passengers. Our compartment too got fully occupied when a couple joined us.

While my husband preferred to share the top birth with Saad, I occupied the side birth. I generally don't get sound sleep in trains. So, I was not very comfortable. As I was trying to get some sleep I noticed that every time I opened my eyes the curtains of my seat were not in place. I even thought how some people just couldnt walk properly and because of their  their mistake I had to take the pain to get up all the time to draw the curtains.

 I turned towards the window side and closed my eyes. It was not late when I felt that someone was trying to peep through my curtains. I raised my voice asking who it was.  The shadow in the dark replied he was sorry and was just looking for his seat.

Just few minutes later my husband woke up only to notice that his laptop which he kept near his leg was missing. Before we could realise anything else he noticed that our two suitcases that were kept under the side birth too were missing.

We were 'robbed'… this very word made my brain go numb. I had heard of such incidents but never knew how it felt when you are the victim. Yes, I was numb for few seconds and then as soon as I gained sensibility from my partial unconsciousness I asked my husband to rush to the TTE (Travelling Ticket Examiner) and report the matter.

I accompanied my husband . TTE was in the next bogie. We talked to him and even asked him to show the list of all the passengers of our bogie. Surprisingly, no one had de-boarded the train from our bogie. TT concluded that some outsider must have done all this when the train haulted for few minutes at the last station.

There were so many doubts and questions in mind. It was a robbery case that could have been solved easily if only the concerned authorities had shown some interest. Some obvious questions that cropped up in my mind were, how can anyone just get into the ac coach without the notice of the attendant and TT? How can a single person carry all the heavy suitcases and if it was a group then how it went unnoticed? How the robbers knew exactly where our luggage were placed? Why only we targeted when the other couple with us (in our compartment) too carried some valuables with them?

Though that time my confused state of mind could not gather any answer but later it was clear.. it was a planned and an informed robbery with many involved in it… may be some passengers, may be the attendant or even the TT.

I cursed the robbers loudly so that anyone who so ever participated in this dirty game knew that he is now going to bear the brunt of my curses. Although the robbers worked hard to loot our luggage they actually failed to get anything valuable. The luggage they picked up had only dresses and winter wears which I am sure they were not interested in.  Though not much of monetary loss, their deplorable act definitely gave us immense mental stress.

However, in that tensed moment I realized that the robbers had mistakenly done something in my favor and against their goals. They spared my suitcase (placed in the middle of the two lower births) which contained all my new dresses and also some money which could have  been  of some consolation  to them for their meticulous planning and hard work.

I spoke loudly (making sure everyone and specially the person involved in the robbery got to hear my words) of how the robbers were mere the big losers. With so much planning and hard work they got nothing but my curses. True, we did not actually lose anything valuable except for our passports. The old laptop that would not have fetched the robbers much had with it our passports. Re-issuing of passports was the main issue that bothered us.

But this was just the beginning of series of other incidents.

To make sure that this blog does not become too lenghty and hence boring for my readers I decide to end this blog here. I will continue with all the incidents that followed post-robbery in my next blog. I will give an account of the reactions of the co-passengers, the behavior of the railway superintendent and more in my next blog.