Ghaziabad police lodges FIR of theft after locals flee with 14,000 litres of milk from damaged tanker

The damaged truck was parked on the roadside, and people escaped with milk and some got spilt on the road as well. The tanker has a capacity of about 21,000 litres, and only about 7,000 litres of milk was left in it

Police on Wednesday registered an FIR of theft after unidentified persons escaped with about 14,000 litres milk from a damaged tanker parked on National Highway-9 (NH-9), after it got hit by another speeding truck on Delhi-Meerut Expressway on August 6 (Tuesday) in Ghaziabad.

A video of people flocking to the milk tanker and filling up buckets, bottles and cans with milk was widely shared on social media on Tuesday. It showed people opened the outlet valve on the rear of the tank and filling milk in whatever containers they had with them (HT Photo)

The accident happened around 3.30am on Tuesday on Delhi-Meerut Expressway. The milk tanker was headed towards Gajraula from Delhi, and when it reached near ABES college, it suffered a tyre puncture. As the vehicle got disbalanced and the driver lost control of it, a crane-mounted truck, which was right behind, crashed into the milk tanker.

Prem Sagar, the driver of the crane-mounted truck, was killed in the incident while his helper, Deenu (single name), suffered injuries and was hospitalized.

The traffic police later towed away the two trucks out of the expressway lanes and parked the vehicles on the side of NH-9 (of which the expressway is a part).

Later, a video of people flocking to the milk tanker and filling up buckets, bottles and cans with milk was widely shared on social media. It showed people opened the outlet valve on the rear of the tank and filling milk in whatever containers they had with them.

HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

In this connection, the Ghaziabad police registered an FIR on Wednesday on a complaint from the owner of the milk tanker under Section 303(2) (theft) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) at the Vijay Nagar police station.

The damaged truck was parked on the roadside, and people escaped with milk and some got spilt on the road as well. The tanker has a capacity of about 21,000 litres, and only about 7,000 litres of milk was left in it. So I complained to the police,” said Atul Kumar, resident of Mayur Vihar phase 3, Delhi.

“We registered an FIR after theft and are trying to identify the suspects. As regards the death of the driver (of the crane mounted truck), we are yet to register any FIR as no complaint has been received in that regard,” said Ritesh Tripathi, assistant commissioner of police (city 1).