The Tiruppur District (Rural) Police on Sunday arrested four more persons in connection with the abduction of a driver, who was previously involved in gold smuggling, near Palladam on Thursday.
The arrested were Salman (41) from Tiruvadanai, Sadgunan (48) from Pudukottai, Raghu (30) from Ramanathapuram and Karthik (34) from Coimbatore. Karthik had been with the State police and got relieved from service some years ago, police said. According to the police, the four men were part of the gang that abducted S. Maheswaran of Tiruvadanai, who had been working as driver of a family from Ammapalayam near Thirumuruganpoondi in Tiruppur.
The gang abducted Maheswaran near Palladam when he was driving the car for his employer. They also abducted two friends of Maheswaran - S. Veeramani (28) and O. Azhagar (33) on Wednesday. The abductors kept the three men at a farm in Dindigul from where they managed to escape on Friday.
During investigation, the police found that Maheswaran used to smuggle gold from Sri Lanka for ‘Good Luck’ Rajendran of Ramanathapuram district. Yasser Arafat and Mohammed Rizwan of Ramanathapuram had financed Rajendran to smuggle five kg of gold a year ago. Maheswaran told Rajendran that he had to abandon five kg of gold while being followed by the police during the smuggling bid. Rajendran did not buy Maheswaran’s claim and handed him over to Arafat and Rizwan. However, he escaped from their custody and started working as driver, said the police. On Saturday, the police arrested Arafat, Rizwan and Rajeswaran, a policeman attached to the Armed Reserve, for abducting Maheswaran.
