Mustard oil, with its prices skyrocketing, is the latest target of criminals in Bihar.

They looted a truck loaded with mustard oil bottles, pouches and cans worth Rs 40 lakh from Muzaffarpur, around 75km from the state capital, and made good their escape, only to be nabbed by the police a day later on Tuesday.

However, by that time they had sold around 500 cartons or 20 per cent of the total 2,500 cartons being transported in the truck. Efforts are on to trace out the people or traders who purchased them from the desperados.

The mustard oil-laden truck was taking the consignment to Chhapra in Saran district. It halted at a place on National Highway 28 in Muzaffarpur and its driver Rajesh Kumar stepped down to visit his nearby residence for dinner and catch some sleep. His helper Mahendra Kumar slept in the vehicle.

A group of six people came in a car. Some of them boarded the truck, held Mahendra captive and fled with the vehicle. When the helper resisted, he was badly beaten-up and thrown on the road.

A police patrol car noticed Mahendra lying unconscious on the side of the road on Monday morning and took him to a nearby government hospital. He regained consciousness after some time and told the police about the incident.

Muzaffarpur (town) deputy superintendent police (DSP) Ram Naresh Paswan told reporters that the police officials swung into action and discovered from footage from CCTV cameras installed in the area that the looted truck was being taken towards Vaishali district. They also contacted truck’s owner Rajesh Kumar.

“We got some leads and guessed that the truck was being taken towards Patna. We issued an alert all around so that it could be apprehended. We also relayed a message about the truck’s registration number,” Paswan said.

The truck was traced to Nawada on Tuesday. The police recovered it and arrested seven persons, including four accused of looting it and three traders.

“Around 500 cartons of mustard oil are missing from the truck. The robbers had struck a deal to sell the remaining oil to traders in Jharkhand and were on the way with the vehicle. We are interrogating them further,” one of the police official said.

Truck’s owner Manoj said that he had never heard about mustard oil being looted.

“Mustard oil is a cooking essential in several states of the country and its retail price has jumped to around Rs 200 per litre these days. It seems the people involved in looting the truck were lured by the high price and demand of the commodity,” Manoj added.

Retail price of mustard oil in Bihar has increased by around Rs 40 to 50 per litre over the last two months.

Marijuana seized

A joint team of excise and police officials apprehended a container truck in Barachatti in Gaya district of Bihar and seized 1,100kg of marijuana on Tuesday. One person has been arrested with the vehicle, while two of his accomplices managed to escape.

The seizure was based on intelligence inputs and the contraband was being transported from Cuttack in Odisha to Haryana. It was hidden in a specially constructed secret chamber in the container. Excise officials said that the marijuana consignment would be worth between Rs 2 crore and Rs 3 crore in the market.

Earlier, a truck carrying 700kg was seized at Rajapakar in Vaishali district of Bihar on Monday. The sacks of narcotic weed were hidden in a consignment of papayas.