Dressed like ragpickers and druggies, the four Thane officers lived on the track for 10 days.Four Thane Railway Protection Force personnel disguised themselves as ragpickers and drug addicts, and lived on the tracks between Mumbra and Kalwa for ten days to nab four thieves who stole halogen lamps from the Parsik railway tunnel.The lamp pilferage was to further the thieves’ plan to snatch bags and expensive items from commuters on suburban trains journeying through the blacked out tunnel.For the past three months, railway authorities had been puzzled about the complete blackout in Parsik tunnel, which lies between Mumbra and Kalwa stations. This particular stretch had become notorious for stone-pelting, bag-snatching and other incidents of crime. The railway police had decided to light up the entire tunnel to enable easy spotting of untoward activities going on in the tunnel.But soon they noticed that the lamps themselves were being stolen. Around 58 lights have gone missing since January.This troubled the cops as the distance between two trains crossing inside the tunnel was so narrow that a thief could easily jump into one train from another whenever trains slowed down or halted in the tunnel. As police patrolling did not help tackle the problem, the RPF decided on another ruse.Four officers from Thane RPF spent days and night in disguise to nab the lamp thieves. For a few days they did not see anything unusual, but soon enough they saw four men who appeared to be conducting a recce of the tracks. They soon noticed that these men were regular visitors on the stretch.It was only a matter of time before the noticed the four removing the halogen lights in the tunnel and escaping by jumping into the last compartment of passing trains.Having thoroughly studied the gang’s modus operandi, extra forces were called in on Monday night. Both openings to the tunnel were blocked off, and RPF personnel surrounded it. As the foursome sprung into action again the officers gave them the chase. The accused jumped into a train, but the RPF men managed to grab them in time and pull them off the footboard. Senior divisional security commissioner, RPF, Alok Bohra said: “The accused have been identified as Imran Yusuf Khan, 25, Guddu Khan, 20, Mirza Beg ,22, and a minor who is 14 years of age; two are from Diva and two from Kalwa. They have been arrested and remanded to police custody.Investigations are on.” He said the light fixtures had been stolen twice in the recent past and police had to ascertain whether it was the same gang that was involved in both instances.