Tirupur: Rural police arrested three people, including the police attached to Coimbatore City Police, for kidnapping gold smugglers from Palladam on Friday.
Police identified victims as SM Maheswaran, 33, Thiruhapanai in Ramanathapuram district.
He has worked as a driver for J Bhagya, 60, from Ammapalayam near Thirmauruganpoondi in the city of Tirupur for the past half a month.
On Friday, Bhagya, his younger daughter and granddaughter went to Therpatti near Dharapuram in Tirupur.
Maheswaran drives a car.
Putri Bhagya went down in Therpatti.
When Bhagya and his grandson returned to Ammapalaryam, Mahwaran’s friend Azhagaramy contacted him by telephone and asked to come to Palladam.
When the car reached Palladam, a gang of seven members in three cars stopped them and kidnapped Mahwaran.The police supervisor G Shashank Sai formed five special teams to arrest the kidnappers.
A team found one of the cars used for kidnapping in Karnanur in Dindigul District.
“The kidnappers have made Mahwaran on a agricultural land in Dindigul with his friends S Veeramani, 28 and O Azhagar, 33, who were kidnapped by gang on Wednesday.
Trio managed to escape on Friday,” said a police officer.
“Mahwaran used to smuggle gold ingots from Sri Lanka for BJP leaders, Goodluck Rajendran from Ramanathapuram district.
A year ago, he had to leave 5kg gold ingots after he was chased by a man in Khaki.
Even though he told Rajendran about the incident, the BJP leader didn’t believe him .
When Yasser Arafat and Mohammed Rizwan from Ramanathapuram, who gave money to Rajendran to smuggle ingot, demanding the contraband, Rajendran handed Maheswaran to them.
Maheswaran escaped from confinement two months ago and moved to the town of Tirupur to work as a driver, ” Add the officer.
To regain gold from Maheswaran, Arafat and Rizwan have brought conticable Rajeswaran with them to kidnap him.
Police Palladam arrested Rizwan and Arafat on Saturday and seized the car used for kidnapping.
The police also arrested Rajeswar for helping the kidnappers.
The trio was returned in court detention.