Calcutta, June 2: If you sleep well on trains, beware the next time round. Also beware if you are in the habit of drinking too much water or going to the toilet frequently while travelling.

Three thefts have been reported in the past fortnight, two of them on the showpiece Rajdhani.

Ankita Dharewal, a Calcutta businesswoman who had an upper berth in a three-tier compartment of the Rajdhani from Sealdah, lost her laptop and suitcase on Monday.

“I woke up around 3 am and found my luggage missing. I called the attendant and it took them 45 minutes to lodge a complaint. I suspect some of the attendants were hand-in-glove with the robbers,” she said.

Ankita, 29, was travelling alone. A man, who did not have a reservation, was sitting on the seat next to hers. He said he would get off at Mughal Sarai.

“I was awake till 2 am and checked my luggage and tucked the laptop case’s belt under my bed spread so that I came to know if someone tried to take it away. But the miscreants unhooked the belt and picked up my laptop,” said Ankita.

Two days before, Anurag Pradhan of Lake Town found his luggage missing when he returned from the toilet on the Sealdah-Delhi Rajdhani.

T.K. Ghosh, the platform inspector at Sealdah, admitted that robberies on train were on the rise and that the railway had received several complaints over the past few months.

“The robbers sometimes drug passengers and take away their belongings. Sometimes, they sit inside compartments and wait for passengers to fall asleep,” he added.

Over a year ago, the railway had launched a crackdown. It yielded some result ? two gangs were busted. “These groups used to target Darjeeling Mail, which is full of tourists,” Ghosh said.

Tourists still continue to be soft targets. Suman Rao, 40, a software company employee in Calcutta, had to cancel his Jammu jaunt because most of his bags were stolen when he got down at Asansol station to buy drinking water.

The reserved coach Jammu Tawai Express was packed with unreserved passengers and his wife and two sons could not spot the thugs who pulled their bags out.

Two other passengers of the same train were looted on April 15.

K. Jayraman, the superintendent of railway police at Howrah, said: “Most of these incidents happened in Sealdah-bound trains.”

But he added: “We do get such complaints and alert RPF personnel.”

Senior railway police per- sonnel are meeting next week. Jayraman said: “To chalk out plans to prevent such incidents.”

heist express

• May 29: Ankita Dharewal’s laptop and suitcase stolen from Rajdhani; she was sleeping
• May 27: Anurag Pradhan finds suitcase missing on his return from the Rajdhani toilet
• May 15: Suman Rao’s holiday trip with family goes sour as two suitcases are stolen about 200 km into the journey on Jammu Tawai Express
• April 10: Two passengers travelling on the same train complain of theft; they were sleeping when their bag had been pulled out