And after giving countless sleepless nights to both local police and the railway cops, Kamal Kishore, alias KP, and also known as the ‘railway thief’, has finally landed in the police net.

But his crimes and burglaries apart, Kishore, the police say, is also known to be a colourful, extravagant character. Police sources said Kishore married five times over the years and has given each wife a different bungalow — all in Trilokpuri area of east Delhi.

Calling Kishore an “aiyyash chor”, a senior police officer said the “whole of Trilokpuri” area is aware of his crimes and misdemeanours.

“When we questioned one of his wives, Neetu (alias Chanchalam), she said she is ‘wife number 3’,” the officer said. The police have thus far questioned three of Kishore’s purported wives — Neetu, Shakuntala and Shehnaz — “and all of them introduced themselves in a similar fashion, with a wife number,” the officer said.

“They are all aware of Kishore’s activities and the fact that he has multiple wives, but they are cordial with each other.” One likely reason for that, the officer said, is the fact that Kishore took good care of them all.

The Beginning
According to the police, Kishore embarked on his criminal career in 1990, getting into the satta and liquor business first. There was no looking back after that; and though he was arrested on several occasions he used those “trips” to the jail to form his own “railway gang”, the police source said.
According to the source, Kishore has at least 14 members in his gang.
Once established as the Capital’s prime “railway thief”, Kishore’s approach to ransacking wagons was no less dramatic, another police official said.

The Middle
Explaining his modus operandi, the police official said that Kishore visited all the city’s major railway stations with some of his gang members before zeroing in on any goods wagon. “He would visit Nizamuddin, Faridabad, New Delhi, and Old Delhi stations — he is, in fact, known to even explore Ahmedabad — before finally setting eyes on a particular goods train,” the official said. “He mostly looked out for luggage compartments that were locked — this indicated value of articles kept inside.”
His ‘inspection’ done, Kishore fed the rest of the gang with details: the train number and time of departure, the source said. “Once the train moved, he and his gang members would break open the lock and ransack the goods inside. The rest of the gang travelled alongside the train in a Gypsy — those inside the wagon threw out all valuables and the ones cruising alongside in the car would collect them.”

The End
Last year, the police said, Kishore spread out his crime horizon somewhat: he broke into a house in Trilokpuri, raped a widow and made away with all valuables. Later that year, he beat up one Salim, a police informer deployed to track him.
Declared a ‘proclaimed offender’ in three different cases in east Delhi three years ago, he also got the tag of ‘bad character’ in police books. After the case of manhandling the police informer, both the railway police and east district police were hot on Kishore’s trail, the source said.
The denouement came after the police received specific information about Kishore’s movements in the Capital: he was finally arrested from Mayur Vihar in east Delhi.
Police officials said an inkling of the money he has made can be had in the flat Kishore bought in Pandav Nagar, near Mayur Vihar, last week. It came for Rs. 15 lakh. He also has three luxury cars and two motorcycles registered in his name, officials added.