Roy being led away to the court. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

Alipurduar, March 17: A man accused of drugging passengers on board trains and stealing their belongings was arrested from the New Alipurduar station last night with 15 capsules containing a powder-like substance suspected to be a sedative.

Officials of the Railway Protection Force’s anti drugging cell, formed after there was a spate of such incidents in the Alipurduar railway division last year, claimed that the arrest of the man, Padeep Roy, would help them bust the racket behind the crimes.

There had been 36 incidents of drugging in the Alipurduar division alone in 2007.

Yesterday, plainclothesmen from the cell picked up Roy on the basis of a tip-off around half-an-hour before he was to board the Mumbai-bound Lokamanya Tilak Express, probably in search of potential victims.

“The powder seized from Roy will be sent to a lab to find out what it exactly is,” said Biplab Majumder, a sub-inspector of the RPF posted in Alipurduar Junction. “The man has given us some valuable information about the gang for which he operated, but for the sake of investigation we are not ready to disclose it.”

However, an RPF source said it has emerged that Roy was one of two persons who operated between Gosaigaon in Assam and New Alipurduar station.

Roy has been forwarded to the court of the additional chief judicial magistrate of Alipurduar, said the sub- inspector.