Calcutta, Jan. 5: A woman’s suitcase containing gold jewellery was found missing from a Howrah station platform seconds after sweepers had cleaned the spot where she was sitting with her luggage.

Nilima Pandey, 36, was waiting near the Railway Protection Force (RPF) booth on platform No. 13 with five bags and a suitcase as her relatives and son went to buy biscuits.

The family, which arrived from Bhagalpur on the Jamalpur Express at 2.25pm, was waiting for a train to Garulia in North 24-Parganas.

The jewellery, worth Rs 50,000, was wrapped in a sari in the black suitcase.

A little after her relatives left, five railway sweepers asked Nilima to remove the luggage as they wanted to clean the place. “I told them it wasn’t possible for me to move the bags on my own and requested them to wait for my relatives to return. They removed the bags themselves and began sweeping the floor,” Nilima said.

When they were gone, she discovered the suitcase was missing.

Government Railway Police (GRP), with whom Nilima lodged a complaint, said they questioned all the five sweepers after the RPF tracked them down. The group denied the charge as their colleagues converged at the scene and rallied behind them.

“We’ve also watched footage of the closed-circuit television on the platform but failed to spot anybody,” said Taj Muhammad, the Howrah GRP officer-in-charge.