Virudhunagar: Men transporting illegally-mined sand in a lorry attacked the official who stopped them. Though the official gave chase, he couldn’t catch them. The sand smugglers later damaged his bike.
Regional Deputy Tahsildar (DT) of Tiruchuli M Sivanandi was on his way to office via Tiruchuli-Aruppukottai road on a bike. He spotted and tried to stop a lorry laden with sand, but the lorry did not stop.
Sivanandi gave chase, caught up with the lorry at Kulasekaranallur and made it to stop. He passed the information to Tahsildar Ravichandran.
While Sivanandi was questioning the driver and five others who accompanied him, a bike-borne man, identified later as Senthil, approached Sivanandi and tried to talk the DT into releasing the six.
When the gang spotted the tahsildar’s jeep approaching, they allegedly pushed Sivanandi away and sped away in the lorry.
The DT parked his bike near the bus-stand, hoped into the jeep, and gave chase for about four kilometres.
The officials, however, soon lost sight of the speeding lorry which entered into the Mallampatti village, and stopped the jeep at Mallampatti village, where they spotted the sand dumped by the lorry.
The tahsildar and the DT then saw Senthil following them on bike and stopped him. While questioning, the officials saw that the bike bore two different numbers – one number on the front plate, another on the back plate. A fumbling Senthil claimed that he was a friend of the lorry driver’s and that was the reason he interfered in the first place. He claimed he had nothing to do with the mining of sand.
While the trio was conversing, the DT got a call saying that his parked bike was hit by the same lorry they were chasing some time ago. Senthil, using this distraction, scooted.
The officials returned to the bus stand only to find Sivanandi’s mangled bike in a ditch.
Based on a complaint by the DT, a case was registered against seven persons under IPC sections 147, 353, 341, 427 and 506(1). Sources said the lorry was identified and brought to the police station. The gang is believed to have modified the lorry and changed its number plate to make tracing difficult. Hunt is on for the gang.
