NEW DELHI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified burglars broke into a moving train in southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and stole away soiled currency notes worth 865,000 U.S. dollars, police said Wednesday.
The burglary took place inside Salem-Chennai Express train carrying a consignment of soiled currency notes to Chennai.
"When train pulled into Chennai early on Tuesday morning, it had a person-sized hole in roof of one of its coaches," an official said. "Preliminary investigations suggest a robbery of currency notes worth 865,000 U.S. dollars from the consignment."
The train was carrying soiled Indian currency notes worth 51.3 million U.S. dollars belonging to a few public sector banks to be deposited at a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) branch in Chennai, officials said.
Reports quoting railway police officials in Chennai saying when the consignment was opened, wads of currencies were found lying scattered on the floor and four of the boxes were broken.
Police officials said a special team of railway police has been formed to investigate the theft.
"An alert has been issued to all the police stations along the route to gather information on the burglary," the official said.
