HT Correspondent
NAGAON, March 24: A truck driver, identified as Nicholas Dkhar hailing from Juwai of West Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, was found dead in the secret chamber of a cement-laden truck at Deopani near Kaziranga National Park on Sunday morning.
Sources claimed that the truck driver took the truck to unload bags of cement at Samaguri.
Meanwhile, the police from Jakhalabandha PS arrested one Raju Nath hailing from Pandu in Guwahati in connection with the suspected murder of the truck driver.
Sources said that based on the inputs provided by the truck owner, the police recovered the truck from Deopani near Kaziranga National Park and arrested the criminal.
It was suspected that the arrested Raju might have killed the driver with the help of a wheel wrench inside the truck and then hijacked the truck. He was planning to take the truck to Jorhat to smuggle off the consignment there.
The truck, bearing registration number NL01-AA6213, was carrying cement from Meghalaya and was supposed to unload the consignment at Suraksha Cement (KD Cement) at Samuguri in the district.
“But when the truck owner Gurdeep Singh tracked the truck in GPS and saw that it crossed the delivery point, he immediately informed us. We chased it and intercepted it at Deopani before Bagori,” a senior official said.
The truck was taken to the police station, and Raju was arrested after the truck owner confirmed that he was not the original driver. During the search, the body of the driver was found inside the secret chamber of the truck. Raju Nath was a known criminal and had been arrested several times earlier in truck hijacking cases.