NE NEWS SERVICE
BENGALURU, DECEMBER 9
Two truck drivers plotted to steal onions by claiming that 81 onion sacks worth Rs. 9 lakh and weighing over 4,700 kg they were transporting to Chennai were looted away by the public minutes after the vehicle barged into a ditch in the wee hours of last Friday.
The drivers and their three accomplices have been arrested for stage-managing the accident drama and siphoning off the produce, purportedly to pay back the loan instalment of the vehicle.
A woman Sub Inspector of Tavarekere police in Tumakuru district smelt something fishy, when she found a truck in a roadside ditch near Yaragunteswara Nagar near Sira.
She was told by the crew that more than half of their onion load were looted by the public, onlookers. The SI was on night patrol and remembered that there was no truck there when she passed by half an hour earlier.
“Mahalakshmamma H N questioned the two drivers and they had confessed to have committed the crime. The drivers told police they had unloaded 81sacks of onions in Hiriyur, Chitradurga district, and shifted them to another vehicle to transport them to Yeshwanthpur market in Bengaluru,” a senior police officer said. The drivers, Santosh Kumar R, 23, and Chetan M, 24, admitted to intentionally driving into the roadside ditch.
They were arrested along with onion trader Sheikh Ali, 60, and his sons Buden Sab, 35, and Dadapeer, 40. All the five are residents of Hiriyur.
Police said truck owner Chetan, 19, who is the main suspect, is on the run. Preliminary probe revealed that Chetan resorted to the theft drama to clear pending instalments of his vehicle loan.
“He hatched a plan to steal onions and took the help of his two drivers and businessman Ali. Chetan was also planning to claim insurance to repair his truck,” an investigating officer said.
On the basis on a complaint lodged by the farmer Ananda Kumar of Davanagere, police have registered a case against the gang and are investigating.
