After gold and cash, it's onion loot in Bihar! Six armed criminals looted around 5 tonnes of onion worth Rs 3.5 lakh from a truck on the old Grand Trunk Road under Mohania police station area in Kaimur district late on Thursday night. One sack contains 50kg of onion. The price of one kg of onion in the local market varies from Rs100 to Rs120/kg.
According to the police complaint, six robbers travelling in a car intercepted the truck near Muthani diversion on the GT Road, now known as National Highway-2, around 10.30 pm on Thursday and held the driver, Desh Raj, captive at gunpoint. Then they hijacked the truck carrying 102 sacks of onion and took it to an undisclosed location where the commodity was unloaded.
The criminals kept Desh Raj, a resident of Kaushambi in Uttar Pradesh, moving in the car for nearly four hours before dropping him at a deserted place. The driver was told by the captors that he would find his truck parked near a petrol pump located at Pusauli under Kudra police station area in Kaimur district.
Desh Raj, in his early 50s, walked for over one km on foot to get a lift in a mini truck to reach the place where his truck had been parked by the kidnappers. After tracing the truck, he informed the Jehanabad trader, Md Minhaz Raes, who had booked the consignment from Allahabad.
Mritunjay Kumar, a close friend of Minhaz, said on Friday that the truck was hijacked when it was on way to Jehanabad from Allahabad. "An FIR has been lodged with Mohania police station in connection with the hijacking of the truck and loot of onion loaded on it," he told this newspaper.
The driver earlier told the police that he remained in captivity from 10.30pm on Thursday to 2am on Friday. He was also thrashed by the criminals in the car.
Mohania police station SHO Uday Bhanu Singh said a case has been lodged against unidentified persons on the statement of the truck driver. "Raids are on to nab the criminals involved in the crime," he told this newspaper over phone.
Authoritative sources said 64 sacks of garlic worth Rs 2 lakh was looted from a mini truck near Pachchahganj under Kudra police station area in Kaimur district on December 6. The consignment was booked by a trader, Ashok Kumar Singh of Sasaram in Rohtas district, from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
A senior police officer said the criminals were targeting trucks carrying commodities like onion or garlic as their prices had gone up several times in recent months. "This can be gauged from the fact that the two incidents of loot of onion and garlic had been reported on the NH-2 in Kaimur district only," he said.
Though cases were lodged, the police have failed to make any breakthrough in any of the two cases.