Panic gripped traders of the Kolar Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) on Sunday, when a lorry laden with tomatoes, worth ₹21 lakh, went missing en route to Jaipur, Rajasthan.
This is at least the third suspected tomato heist reported from Karnataka, after the price of tomatoes skyrocketed to over 150 a kilo.
Traders from Kolar, who lost their goods, approached the Kolar city police and filed a complaint on Sunday seeking help to trace the lorry. The Kolar police have taken up the complaint and initiated an inquiry.
The tomato load belongs to three traders, who used private transport to send the produce to Jaipur. Munireddy, one of the three traders, told presspersons that they have not been able to contact the lorry driver or the transport operators.
The lorry driver, along with his assistant, left Kolar on Thursday and the driver was in touch with the traders until Saturday. “However, we realised that the GPS was switched off by Sunday morning and the driver went incommunicado,” Mr. Munireddy said.
Last known location causes concern
“We are not sure whether the driver stole the tomatoes or whether the lorry was hijacked on the highway,” said a senior police official.
The probe so far has revealed that the lorry covered 1,800 km and the last location before the GPS went off was Nasik, Maharashtra.
Nasik houses the biggest tomato market in Asia, while Kolar is the second largest. This last known location has raised suspicions that the driver may have stolen the load and taken it to sell it in Nasik.
“We are trying to contact our counterparts in other States and have also asked the traders to approach the police and file a complaint in Nasik,” a police officer said.
Second tomato truck stolen
It may be recalled that the Bengaluru city police recently arrested a couple who, along with their associates, hijacked a truck laden with 2.5 tonnes of tomatoes from a farmer of Chitradurga on July 8. The couple took the hijacked truck to Tamil Nadu and sold the tomatoes.
Days before this incident, tomatoes harvested and kept in a farm were stolen from Belur taluk of Hassan district.
