Kolkata: Bed sheets, hand towels, blankets and pillows, worth around Rs 9 lakh, have been stolen from AC coaches of 126-odd mail/express trains, including Rajdhani and Duronto, over the past five months. The Sealdah division of Eastern Railway has recorded a total number of 17,374 items, which could not be recovered by coach attendants after passengers deboarded.The railway guidelines mandate that coach attendants pay at least 75% of the prices for the missing articles.The most-stolen object was hand towel, 16,815 of which went missing in the past five months, followed by bed sheets (412), blankets (85) and pillows (62), said divisional railway manager (DRM) of Sealdah Rajeev Saxena. “Special trains will now run to cater to the festive rush to and from the city. Railway officials are pleading with AC coach passengers not to take away railway properties, like bedsheets, towels and pillows. We are witnessing a rise in the number of such thefts. It’s the coach attendants, deployed in AC compartments, who have to pay 75% of the missing objects’ prices,” Saxena told TOI.The railway datasheet updated so far this year shows that stolen hand towels account for around Rs 6.9 lakh, nearly 76% of the total Rs 9 lakh thefts. “Till now, 85 blankets, worth Rs 28,279, have been stolen from AC coaches of Sealdah division trains. Given the spike in thefts, we urge passengers to return these items after use. We have no other option but to make this appeal: no one should make away with railway properties,” said a senior railway official.In the past two years, this railway division lost the same items, worth total Rs 45 lakh. The theft came to around Rs 26 lakh in 2025 and Rs Rs 19 lakh in 2024.Coach attendants, outsourced from private agencies, are upset with the fines they have to pay for thefts, committed by passengers. “The railways deals with the agencies hiring us. The agencies deduct the sum of stolen items from our salaries. Our monthly salary is Rs 12,000 and if Rs 2,000 is deducted, how will we run our families?” said an attendant.
