Police foils bid to smuggle rice to AP

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The Tamil Nadu police on Saturday night arrested an Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation (APRTC) bus driver and six people, including five women, who were smuggling 2,000 kg of rice from Tamil Nadu to Andhra Pradesh.

According to police, who seized the bus, the APRTC driver, Venkateswaralu of Nellore, was driving the bus from Chennai to Nellore with no passengers other than the smugglers — four from Nellore, Andhra Pradesh and two from Gumudipoondi.

“The AP buses usually have only a driver and no conductor. So it was easy for him to use the bus for smuggling purpose. He had removed the destination board and was driving the bus with no lights inside. A team led by civil supplies CID inspector Ukkira Pandiyan stopped the bus near Red Hills check post,” police said here.

The arrested smugglers were identified as Thilaka and Koteswari of Gumudipoondi, and Radha, Thanmal, Guruammal and Venu of Sulurpet in Nellore.

The driver drove the bus without passengers upto Red Hills where the rice smugglers loaded 40 bags, each containing 50 kg, of ration rice in the bus. However, within minutes the police team stopped the bus.

The driver would show that he had issued some tickets to ‘passengers’. “Even after issuing tickets to fake passengers, the driver of the bus would make an additional Rs2,000 per trip,” the police said when asked how he would explain driving an empty bus from Chennai to Nellore.

The police said that the smugglers were to deliver the rice to one Ramesh of Gudur, Andhra Pradesh.