CHENNAI: At a time when pirates are grabbing headlines, a series of strikes by ‘highway pirates’, targeting goods-laden trucks and container carriers on the Grand Trunk Road between Chennai and Vijayawada, has gone unnoticed. In the past 10 months, 27 trucks have been hijacked and their drivers and helpers have not returned. So far, 13 bodies have been unearthed. The truckers’ community is jittery over vehicles going missing on National Highway 5 stretches under Andhra Pradesh police. The recent arrest of a gang in Ongole — described in the media as serial killers’ gang — led to the exhuming of bodies, buried at random spots by the gang. Two of the bodies were cremated on Wednesday, said K Nallathambi, secretary of Namakkal Taluk Lorry Owners Association. Nallathambi told to this website's newspaper , “Our container lorry heading to Kalpakkam from Durgapur went missing in Andhra Pradesh on September 26. However, the ‘jeep’ of the lorry was found near Ongole and after the police arrested a gang, the killing of the drivers came to light.” He said lorries laden with iron and steel rods were the ones mostly targeted.
The spokesperson of All India Motor Transport Congress for South India, R Sugumar, said that at a time when the number of people taking up truck driving as a profession was on the decline, the fear of ‘highway pirates’ could severely affect the trucking industry. He said about 70 per cent of the trucks starting from Puducherry, normally carrying consumer goods, were being targeted. “These people somehow gather the information on the materials being sent through containers and catch up with them in Andhra Pradesh,” he said. Some trucks were hijacked when they were parked and a few others were targeted when on the move, said Nallathambi. He said the ‘highway pirates’, using Ambassador cars or MUVs, stopped vehicles masquerading as policemen and then commandeered the trucks to their ‘police station’, telling the drivers that their papers were not in order. The drivers and helpers were then strangled in isolated spots and buried.