Karnataka police achieved a breakthrough in the serial murders of truck drivers on the national highway by tracing the body of one of the victims buried in Chinneru project area in Molakalacheruvu mandal on Sunday.
A police party headed by Chinthamani additional SP Ramesh Banagare, along with two persons involved in the murders, who lead the police to the project area from where the police exhumed the body buried in a ditch.
Local police including Madanapalle DSP Vijayaraghava Reddy, CI A Venkataramana assisted Karnataka police in exhuming the body in the presence of Molakalacheruvu tahsildar D Narasimhulu and medical officer Srinivas Sagar who performed the panchanama of the body, which was not yet identified.
The gang members after hijacking the truck on its way to Anantapur killed the driver and buried the body in Chinneruru project area.
Karnataka police said Sheik Jaffervali of Palamaneru in Chittoor district and Rajendra of Yelahanka, Bengaluru who are part of the 12-member gang involved in the killing of 14 truck drivers, were arrested recently.
Ramesh said of the 12 member eight belong to Palamaneru in Chittoor district.
The modus operandi of these gang members is that they first befriend the truck drivers in dhabas.
Later, posing as passengers they board the trucks, while other members follow them.
On the way they make the truck driver unconscious and take vehicle to an isolated place, where the other members kill the driver and bury the body.
Later, the truck is sold along with the goods.