CHENNAI: A container lorry, abandoned by eight men on the Andhra Pradesh-Tamil Nadu border during the wee hours of Monday raised the possibility of smugglers and/or terrorist elements on the prowl.
Police sources said the lorry had day-to-day items for living, such as a stove, including provisions and a number of grocery items that would enable the men to live inside. The lorry was headed toward AP along the Chennai-Guntur highway.
At around 1 am it had halted near a tea shop at Pudi, a border village in Nellore district. Customers in the tea shop grew suspicious as the lorry’s container had a little door at the top and seven men emerged from that door and climbed down from the lorry. The driver emerged from the driver’s seat. “On seeing this unusual spectacle, the customers called the AP police control room and alerted them. The eight men who had emerged from the lorry, realized that the police had been alerted and fled before the police could arrive,” said a police source.
When an AP police team reached the spot and checked the abandoned container lorry, they found stocks of rice, vegetables and other groceries. There was also a stove and a few vessels to prepare food.
“Andhra police have shared information with us. However, Terrorist and Disruptive Activities officials (located in AP) have taken over and are investigating the case. They have seized the lorry,” said a Thiruvallur police officer.
Both TN and AP state police have issued separate alerts for the arrest of the eight persons and are on the lookout for them. The lorry was carrying Karnataka registration plates and police suspect it had begun its journey in Chennai on Sunday.
According to a local source in TADA, a team of personnel from Tamil Nadu police approached their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh and also the people present at the teashop, suspecting that the unidentified persons could be related to the Central Station blasts last January and handed over a a set of photograph of five suspects.