Chennai: The police arrested seven persons including the son of former AIADMK Minister Chellapandian for hijacking a cashew truck worth Rs 1.10 crore and assaulting the truck driver near Thoothukudi-Tirunelveli stretch of National Highway.  The police also recovered Rs 10 lakh from them and seized the car they used for the crime. 


According to a report on The New Indian Express, a truck driver Ari Raj (35) of Alangulam in Tenkasi was riding a container truck loaded with 16 tonnes of cashew worth Rs 1.10 crore from Mulagumoodu in Kanyakumari district to a shipping company in Thoothukudi for transportation to Tokyo. 


However, when the truck was nearing Thoothukudi-Tirunelveli stretch a group of seven members waylaid the truck and threatened the driver with a knife at Pottalurani on the National Highway. The gang then allegedly attacked him and later kept him in the boot of the car with blindfolds. They also fed him two bottles of liquor to intoxicate him and threw him out of the car in Aravakurichi of Karur district the next day morning.


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However, the driver noted down the car number and he informed his friend who informed the owner of the lorry. 


Following this, the lorry owner gave a complaint to Thoothukudi SP S Jeyakumar. The SP formed a special team and tried to trace the truck but by then the accused persons removed the Fastag and GPS from the truck. 


Hence, they tried to trace the car and found that the car belonged to Minister Chellapandian's son Gnanaraj Jebasingh. The police then traced the car to Rasipuram of Namakkal district. 


Along with Jebasingh, the police also arrested Marimuthu Mani, Senthilmurugan, Manohar, Vishnu, Pandi and Rajkumar.