In a related development, the police arrested Akhtar Khan, alias Babloo, who worked with a gang which specialised in stopping trucks posing as truck drivers.

In the first case two persons Ram Bilas Sharma, 45, and Madan Lal Sharma, 50, a tempo driver were arrested from the Nabi Karim Police Station area. The duo were transporting 18 cartons of Luigi Tomisi shoes which they had allegedly pilfered from container trucks. Their tempo was also impounded by the police. Ram Bilas confessed that he had been offering money to ``mediators'', who did the actual robbing of trucks. The mediators offered money to the drivers of the trucks transporting containers. The pilfered goods were later delivered to Ram Bilas.

The latter disposed of the articles through Gajender and Vijay. The police later arrested Gajender and Vijay and seized two tons of Basmati rice, 300 kg of Rath vanaspati and tobacco. The articles are said to be worth Rs 6 lakh. The rice, of the Himalayan Harvest brand, was from the Guru Ram Das Rice company of Karnal and was meant for export to Puran Food Wayland of USA. Efforts are on to arrest the others associated with the Ram Bilas gang.

In the other case, police officers of the Special Cell led by Inspector Tej Singh Verma arrested Akhtar Khan, a member of an interstate gang of highway robbers.

Babloo confessed that he along with other members of his gang would intercept loaded trucks and tempos at isolated places. Posing as policemen, they would ask the driver to get down with the papers of the vehicle and that of the cargo. Then they would ask the driver and the helper to sit inside the vehicle, while they drove the truck to an isolated spot. There they would beat up the driver and helper, and leave them there. Then the truck was driven to a godown already hired by the gangsters. The truck was looted and later abandoned.

Akhtar Khan, 28, has been involved in 14 cases of robbery in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. While many of his associates had been arrested earlier, he had been absconding. The gang had begun its activities in July 1997, the police said. They had robbed a truck of detergent powder consignment on July 13, 1997 on the Outer Ring Road in Timarpur; they had waylaid a Swaraj Mazda tempo, containing colour TVs and hosiery on July 1, 1998, near Gopi Nath market, Delhi Cantonment; and in September 1998, they stopped a Tata 709 which was carrying 96 BPL colour TV sets at a petrol pump, at Sector 1, RK Puram.