NAMAKKAL: The bodies of two truck drivers, who were allegedly kidnapped and brutally murdered by a Chittoor-based gang of highway robbers before hijacking a copper-plate-laden truck, were retrieved from the banks of a river at Gudur in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh on Sunday.
“The bodies were found floating on a river in Gudur. Local policemen retrieved them. Subsequently, the autopsy was held at the Government Hospital there”, Krishanagiri police SP P Kannammal, who camped in Gudur, told Express.
The deceased truck-crew, 39-year-old J Saravanan of Kavalakaranpatti in Namakkal and his relative G Kanthasamy Srikanth, 29, of Kasturipatti, Musiri, in Tiruchy district, were abducted by a six-member dacoit-gang at Melumalai within the Soolagiri police station limits in Krishnagiri district in the wee hours of Friday.
The gang murdered the crew before hijacking the truck ferrying copper plates weighing about 21 tonnes.
Later, the gang dumped the bodies into the river from a bridge at Gudur before heading towards Nellore.
The truck owned by Prabavathi of Namakkal was heading towards Silvassa after loading the consignments from the Sterlite Industries in Thoothukudi. The incident came to light following the signals from the global positioning system (GPS) instrument fitted in the vehicle.
According to the police, the bodies were located following the revelations made by three members of the gang- Roshan, 27, Sivakumar, 34, and Sriramulu, 67-who were caught by the Nellore police when they tried to move the copper plates to another truck.
“Preliminary inquiries revealed that they intercepted the copper-plate-laden truck at Melumalai by blocking it with another truck and beat the crew with heavy logs on their heads before strangulating them.
The gang was committing such crimes for a long time.