In a bid to escape, bag-snatcher jumps off running train, dies

A bag-snatcher who attempted to jump off a speeding train in a bid to escape suffered a fatal fall on the track on Friday morning.

The man, aged around 35 years, had snatched the bag of a sleeping woman in an express train heading to Coimbatore. "But she woke up and raised an alarm. As passengers attempted to catch him, he jumped off the train near Tirupur,'' said a railway police.

The man's identity is yet to be ascertained.

According to the railway police, Pugazhendhi, a native of Vellore, working in a private hospital in Tirupati, was travelling to Coimbatore in the Vishakapatnam - Kochi special train along with his wife Sangeetha. Around 5am, when the train was on the Erode-Tirupur section, Sangeetha woke up to find the man pulling her bag.

"As soon as she woke up, he snatched the bag and started moving away. But she raised an alarm waking up other passengers,'' a railway police official said.

As the passengers started chasing him, the man ran through the adjacent compartment and realizing that he was trapped, jumped off the train. The train must have been travelling at about 80kmph. In the impact, he suffered multiple injuries and died on the spot,'' the railway police official said.

The train was stopped only at Tirupur station where a complaint was lodged. Police said neither the couple nor other passengers were aware that the man had died on the tracks. Meanwhile, public spotted his body along the tracks near Perundurai and informed the police.

"We couldn't establish his identity. He didn't have a cell phone. But we have got some clues which would help us identify him," said the railway police official.

Police suspect the man to have boarded the train in a nearby station. "None of the passengers could recall seeing him in their compartment. He must have boarded the train later,'' the inspector said.

Police say there have been incidents of thefts in trains in this section, but they were rare. "We receive very few complaints,'' said another railway police official.

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