Coimbatore: In a major breakthrough in the sensational highway robbery case involving Rs 3.9 crore of unaccounted money, the Coimbatore rural police on Wednesday arrested four persons including a police inspector from Karur district.
A sub-inspector and a constable, who were also part of the illegal operation, are now on the run, police said here on Wednesday.
A five-member gang including inspector Muthukumar from Paramathi police station, sub-inspector Saravanan and constable Dharmendran in police uniform intercepted a car on August 25 on the Neelambur Bypass Road under the pretext of a vehicle check.
“Their plan was to execute a robbery as they were already aware that the four men in the car bound for Kerala from Chennai were tasked by Anwar, 32, a gold trader from Malappuram to dispatch lump sum money,” police said.
The four men, Muhammed, 53, Mujeer, 35, Sithosh, 32 and car driver Anand, 29, were then taken in a Bolero jeep, which too had a sticker as police, for an enquiry at the police station. Two other members of the gang followed them in the car of the complainants.
On nearing Karpagam College junction on the Pollachi main road, the four men were dropped and asked to come to the police station by themselves. It was only on reaching the police station that they came to know that they were robbed.
Police probing the case meanwhile secured three persons Subash, 42, Sudhir, 33, both from Thrissur and Sabiq, 28, from Malappuram on Tuesday, who spilled the beans on the involvement of the cops in the robbery.
The tainted inspector Muthukumar, who also confessed to his involvement, told the police that they executed the robbery on the information given by one Sridhar, a kingpin in the ‘hawala operations’.
After executing the robbery successfully, the three cops took away a good share of Rs 3.9 crore, while giving a portion of the amount to ‘Hawala kingpin’ Sridhar.
