Truck looted in Ludhiana recovered from Sonepat, 3 held

Ludhiana police on Thursday said they cracked a truck loot case within 12 hours of the incident and arrested three accused, including the former owner and driver of the vehicle, both residents of Haryana’s Sonepat.

The key accused, the former owner, who already has a drug smuggling case registered against him, had allegedly planned to use the stolen truck to smuggle narcotics.

The former driver, who was earlier employed by the key accused, was also arrested for allegedly sharing information about the location of the truck at the time of the theft.

Police recovered the looted truck from Sonepat.

The arrested accused were identified as Lovedeep Singh (34), Ranjit Singh (66) and Gurtej Singh (40). Gurtej is the former driver of the truck, while Lovedeep is its former owner.

Additional DCP Sameer Verma, while addressing a press conference, said that on March 2 at around 3.30 pm, police received information that a truck had been looted from Guru Vihar, Basti Jodhewal, in Ludhiana.

Police teams were immediately dispatched to trace the accused and later nabbed them from Sonepat after scanning CCTV footage from toll barriers.

“The key accused, Lovedeep, confessed that he was the first owner of the truck. He hatched a conspiracy with his former driver to snatch the vehicle. He planned to use the truck to smuggle narcotics from Rajasthan to Punjab,” ADCP Verma added.