Drivers lose money to highway robbers
Two drivers of a lorry, carrying wooden logs from Tuticorin to Tiruchi, were waylaid and robbed of Rs.18,900 at knifepoint on the Madurai-Tiruchi highway near Melur in the early hours of Saturday.
The police said that driver, S. Bharatiraja (36) of Ariyamangalam, noticed two persons lying down on the road along with a two-wheeler in the middle of the road near M. Malampatti around 4.30 p.m.
He stopped the truck thinking that the men could have met with an accident and got down from the vehicle.
Even as he tried to lift one of them, the duo got up and brandished knives at him.
A third fellow appeared on the scene and got into the vehicle, where the other driver, Robert Anandan (34), was sleeping in the driver’s cabin.
Both the drivers were dragged to the roadside bushy area.
Their limbs and tied and they were threatened to part with the valuables. They also took the money kept in the truck and escaped in the two-wheeler.
The drivers alerted the police. The Melur police have registered a case of robbery.
