Dharmapuri: A driver lying on the road with his hands and legs tied was saved by the local people near here. This shows that the truck robbing gangs are active again on the national highway (NH) in this western district of Tamil Nadu.
In the early hours of Sunday, local people in Sogathur village on the Chennai-Bengaluru NH of Dharmapuri district found a man lying on the road with his hands and legs tied and crying for help. Villagers handed him over to Dharmapuri police.
When questioned, the man told the police that his name is Ziam Singh, a truck driver of Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh. He sustained injuries in his bid to foil a gang’s robbery attempt when they entered the cabin of his truck, tied his hands and legs before they moved on with the truck, taking Ziam Singh with them.
At Sogathur, the driver was pushed out of the moving truck and the gang thought that he would be run over by other vehicles traversing the road on that stretch and die. Luckily, Ziam Singh was saved due to timely intervention of the Sogathur people.
According to police, the thieves targeted Ziam Singh’s truck because the container vehicle was transporting 267 vehicle tyres worth over '70 lakh from Kochi in Kerala to Vadodara in Gujarat.
A five-member gang that came in a car may have followed their target from Kochi to locate the right place where they could complete their work without trouble, source said.
A case has been registered and police are searching for the missing container truck and also the gang that committed the crime in Dharmapuri police jurisdiction.
