The Tamil Nadu police have on Thursday - December 16 slapped Goondas Act on the son of former ADMK Minister Chellapandian in connection to the robbery of a cashew nut container. In what has become a troubling event for the former minister, the development has come three weeks after the arrest of his son and six others for robbing the container, that was on its way to Tuticorin port. As Goondas Act has been slapped against the former minister's son, acquiring bail for him has become arduous.

According to reports, the state police department had arrested seven people including Chellapandian's son Jeba Singh on November 26 in the Namakkal district in connection to the robbery. All seven were accused of robbing the truck that was carrying 12 tonnes of cashew nuts worth Rs 1.1 crore. The robbery has happened in the wee hours on November 26 in Tuticorin and the culprits were arrested by the police in Namakkal during the night hours on that day. 

The container truck was carrying cashew nuts that were packed to export to Japan. The truck was en route to the Tuticorin port from a cashew factory at Thuckalay in the Kanyakumari district. However, the truck was stopped by an unidentified gang near Pudukottai in Tuticorin district and the mob had threatened the driver at knifepoint and eventually take over the container truck. The gang had then driven the truck towards north while the truck driver informed the manager of the cashew factory that the truck has been robbed. 

Based on his information, the manager had filed a complaint with the Pudukottai police on Friday morning following which special teams were formed to locate and apprehend the culprits. It then came to the revelation that the robbers had damaged the GPS device in the truck due to which the cops had an ordeal in locating the truck. They had circulated the details of the truck to all the toll plazas and they had received inputs that the truck has headed to Namakkal district and the officials had strengthened the efforts to nab them. 

The Tuticorin police had alerted the Namakkal police to trace the whereabouts of the truck. With the details, the police officials of Namakkal had traced the truck and arrested the culprits on Friday night and busted their plot within hours. Former ADMK Minister Chellapandian's son Jeba Singh and his gang members Manoharan, Vishnukumar, Marimuthu, Rajkumar, Pandi, and Senthil Kumar were detained and interrogated by the local police. 

After the investigations, the arrested culprits were handed over to the special team of Tuticorin police and the latter had apprehended all of them and took possession of the truck and a car used by the accused.  The Namakkal police had arrested the culprits at Thimmanayakan Patti near Rasipuram and Jeba Singh has been named as the prime accused in the robbery. A case has been filed under appropriate sections and the police have initiated further proceedings to take the accused under judicial custody. 

All the culprits have been under investigation and three weeks after the arrest, the police have on Wednesday slapped Goondas Act on Jeba Singh, the prime accused in the robbery. Jeba Singh's father Chellapandian was elected to the Tamil Nadu Assembly as an ADMK member for the first time in 2011 from the Thoothukudi constituency. Having won the election for the first time, he was immediately appointed as the Minister of Labour Welfare in Jayalalithaa's cabinet. Chellapandian had again contested from the same constituency in the 2016 polls, only to concede the defeat from DMK's Geetha Jeevan.