Patna: Teacher posing as DTO, four others held for looting vehicles

Patna: A government teacher and four others were arrested for allegedly looting vehicles and extorting money from drivers on highways near Malahi village under Barh police station area in Patna district on intervening night of Thursday and Friday.

Barh SDPO Lipi Singh said the teacher was identified as Vipin Kumar.

He is posted in Darbhanga. “He used to pose as a district transport officer (DTO) for extorting money from vehicles and looting the drivers and passengers with the help of his associates,” she said. The others arrested were identified as Sujeet Rai, Pappu Yadav, Shrikrishna Singh and Vikram Kumar.

The SDPO said two country-made pistols were recovered from the possession of Sujeet and Pappu. “Three live cartridges, two smartphones, Rs5,000 and an SUV were also recovered from their possessions,” she said.

“The first to get arrested was Sujeet on a tip-off that he was planning to loot a truck loaded with iron bars at Barh with the help of four others. Police raided his residence at Malahi and arrested him. Later, the four others also reached there as Sujeet had called them for the loot,” she said.

Lipi said Sujeet and Pappu were evading arrest in connection with a murder and loot case lodged with Namkum police station in Ranchi. “They were also accused in a loot case lodged with Alauli police station in Khagaria,” she said and added that Vikram was earlier arrested in Muzaffarpur with 700 cartoons of liquor almost three months back.