The latest incident took place in the early hours of Tuesday, when three persons assaulted a tourist car driver, tied him up, threw him out of the car and sped away.

The accused had stayed in Hotel Sheetal in Pune and asked the hotel manager to arrange for a car to visit Shirdi. The manager organised the tour and the trio began their journey in a Tata Sumo (MH 14 G 5930). They visited Shirdi and on their return journey, asked the driver, Kailas Ramesh Shinde, to take them to Dhule.

As they were nearing Malegaon on the Mumbai-Agra national highway around 2.30 am they asked the driver to stop, saying they wanted to answer nature's call. as the vehicle came to a halt, they pushed the driver out, bound his hands and feet and sped away in the vehicle. Kailas has filed a complaint with the Malegaon police.

Theincident came close on the heels of the murder of a driver on the Sinnar-Shirdi Road on September 20. In this case, the accused had hired a Tata Sumo from one Sachin Vaidya from Thane. When the car failed to return, the owner started making inquiries. The police showed him a photograph of an unidentified body found near Wavi on the Sinnar-Shirdi road. Vaidya recognised the driver, Navnath Satane, who had been brutally killed. The car (MH 04 AA 2002) is missing.

A similar incident had taken place on Septmber 11, when a car driver's body was recovered at Gorakhnagar near Yeola. The driver was later identified by the car owner, Gopal Mahajan, who said that his Tata Sumo (MH 12 CA 7488) had been hired at Pimpri-Chinchwad for a trip to Indore. In this case the car was found abandoned near Sillod (Aurangabad).

According to police, a gang is operating in the region and patrolling has been stepped up especially during the night. A police official said that some years ago about a dozen drivers had either beenkilled or were thrown out of their vehicles by robbers disguised as clients. He said the same modus operandi was being followed in the recent crop of cases.

Police believe an interstate gang is involved in the murders and that the vehicles might be sold in the northern part of the country or in Nepal. Investigations are on.