The city police on Tuesday arrested three persons, including a security guard and a lorry driver, in connection with the murder of another lorry driver at Puzhal.
Police identified the trio as Bakyaraj (30), a lorry driver from Kannigapuram, Vijayakumar (32), a security guard from Uthukottai, and Vijay alias Vijay Anand (22), also of Kannigapuram. They were held in connection with the murder of lorry driver R Devi (47) of Muthukadayampatti Village, Namakkal district, on November 29. The driver was ferrying iron rods from Gummidipoondi and was on his way to Bengaluru.
Police said the trio was in need of money and sold seven tonnes of iron rods from the lorry. The trio hatched a plan to rob a truck and make easy money by selling its content. They went around Puzhal bypass snooping for lorries they could rob. Police sources said the trio climbed on to every lorry parked on the stretch and finally noticed Devi sleeping alone in his lorry.
The trio returned to the lorry inebriated and allegedly smothered Devi with a pillow. They also strangulated him with a nylon rope. With the dead body in the truck, Bakyaraj drove the vehicle to a cluster of shops near Ambattur that deal in scrap and sold 65 rods in one shop and 15 each in two other shops. They then went back to the shops before daybreak to collect `1.30 lakh and divided the sum among themselves.
Meanwhile, another lorry driver, Sivakumar, and a staff from the logistics company arrived at the Puzhal bypass and found Devi dead inside the it, police said. Police traced the trio through the owners of the scrap shops where they had sold the iron rods.