SALEM: The district police arrested two brothers on charges of stealing cotton bales worth `30 lakh and setting fire to a truck in Salem. The accused were identified as Selvaraj (38) and his brother Prabhu (36) from Omalur in Salem district.
“Meiyarasan (27) from Ramamoorthy Nagar in Kadayampatti in Salem district, runs a transport company and owns truck. In July end, he needed a driver to transport urea from Mettur to Bijapur. So, he contacted Prabhu, who was a truck driver and Prabhu sent Selvaraj to drive the truck. Dharman, of Omalur, accompanied Selvaraj as an assistant driver,” police said.
“Urea was unloaded at Bijapur and cotton was loaded from Maharashtra on August 2. Selvaraj and Dharman left Maharashtra with 150 bales of cotton were travelling to Aruppukottai in Virudhunagar district. However, on August 5 at 4 am, when the lorry arrived at Thomas Colony near Sankagiri, the cotton load caught fire. A few hours later, Selvaraj, Prabhu and Meiyarasan filed a complaint at the Sankagiri police station alleging that the bales were burnt in the fire,” police said.
“However, when we interrogated Selvaraj and Prabhu based on suspicion, it was revealed that Prabhu had stolen 92 bales of cotton worth Rs 30 lakh and set the truck on fire with the remaining 48 bales of cotton,” a police officer said.
“Prabhu had his own truck. But he sold it due to a debt problem. In this case, he planned to pay off the loan and buy a new truck and hence, he planned the incident. The cotton was confiscated and both of them were arrested. Search is on for two others,” police added.