BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh Police is likely to release an advisory containing dos and don’ts for truck drivers, cleaners and transporters to prevent them from becoming targets of highway robbers and killers.
The list of don’ts include no lift to strangers in the lure of some quick money, not getting friendly with strangers, including other truck drivers, or no food or drinks with them inside truck and at any roadside dhaba.
All transporters running trucks and commercial vehicles should compulsorily verify from the police about the antecedents and other details of a person before hiring anyone as a truck driver or a cleaner, it says.
“At a meeting with senior police officials, including the IG and the DIG of Bhopal, we spoke on coming out with the advisory for the truckers to stay alert against the gang of highway robbers and killers, like the one busted recently,” SP (Bhopal South) Rahul Lodha told TNIE on Wednesday.
The advisory has been necessitated after the police busted an inter-state gang of highway robbers and killers, who looted trucks, after murdering truck drivers and cleaners in parts of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
Starting with the killings of truck drivers in Amrawati and Nashik in Maharashtra in 2010, the gang only targeted truck drivers and killers, particularly those from far-flung states. The bodies were dumped at various places, including Bhind, Rajgarh, Guna, Gwalior and Ashok Nagar districts in Madhya Pradesh, Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh.
Nine members of a gang arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police had allegedly looted and killed 33 truck drivers and cleaners in various states since 2010, police said Tuesday.
The arrested gang members have so far "confessed" to have killed 33 truck drivers and cleaners in the last eight years with robbery as the motive.
"They used to sell off the stolen trucks in grey markets after killing the truck drivers," DIG, Bhopal, Dharmendra Choudhary told PTI.
Explaining the modus operandi, the DIG said the gang members used to identify and befriend their target truck drivers and cleaners in their respective areas of operation.
"The accused would then offer drinks laced with sedatives to the truck drivers and cleaners. Once their targets were asleep, they used to kill them," he said.
The crimes were committed in Bhopal, Mandideep, Misrod, Bilkhiria, Hoshangabad and Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Nagpur in Maharashtra and Sambalpur in Odisha, police added.
(With inputs from PTI)