Six persons were arrested in a case relating to waylaying on National Highway-7 near Kodai Road here on Monday.
The arrested were D. Asithar alias Raja (37) of Palayamkottai, I. Isakkimuthu (29) of Perumalpuram in Palayamkottai, K. Srinivasan (24) of Chettikulam in Tirunelveli district, C. Ganesan (27) of Samadhanapuram in Palayamkottai, S. Immanuel (36) of Marudhakulam in Tirunelveli district and S. Vijayakumar (31) of Manakavalam Pillai Nagar in Palayamkottai. The police also recovered Rs.11.06 lakh cash from them.
In a swift move, a special police team, during a surprise vehicle check, intercepted a cab on the Madurai-Dindigul National Highway-7 in the early hours of Monday at Pallapatti pass and secured them for interrogation.
After preliminary inquiry, they found that the gang was allegedly involved in the waylaying case.
The police said that the gang followed the merchant in a car from Tirunelveli and attacked the groundnut merchant’s cashier and another office staff near Pallapatti and robbed Rs.12 lakh from them. Preliminary probe suggested that the gang members were first-time offenders.
The merchant was returning to Dharapuram after collecting the cash from a groundnut export firm in Tirunelveli, a police officer said.
An unidentified gang had assaulted a groundnut merchant Palnisamy (32) of Dharapuram on April 23 and robbed Rs.12 lakh from him and his office staff – Vijayakumar (58), Dharmaraj (59), Periyasamy (57) Subramani (40) and Venkatesan (17) – while they were returning in a car to Dharapuram with the money.
