A tip-off about an armed gang racing in a van in the city, kept police on their toes for nearly two hours on Monday evening. Though the police managed to corner the vehicle and seize a knife from it, the gang members escaped from the police.
Investigation revealed that a scuffle between two groups of students in a college at Nagamalai Pudukottai had led to an armed gang visiting the college in support of one of their friends.
The police traced the owner of the vehicle to Karimedu after the lone person, suspected to be driver, abandoned the vehicle on noticing the police at DRO Colony.
The city police were on high alert after an auto-driver told the police personnel in the check-post on the Theni Road that an armed gang was rushing in a van.
Realising that the police had started looking for them, the gang members drove the vehicle to DRO Colony and parked it on a road, parallel to the Pudur Main Road, leading to Tiruvalluvar Nagar.
A police constable who was also moving around looking for the van, noticed the vehicle.
As he approached the van, a man jumped out of it and made good his escape.
Senior police officials, including Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Samanth Rohan Rajendra, inspected the vehicle.
The owner of the van had informed the police that he had lent it to his neighbour, a youth.
Further enquiry is on.
