Ranchi, June 22: Four days after an oil tanker carrying lubricating oil worth Rs 10 lakh was hijacked at Nagari on NH-23, the police continued to grope in the dark.

Officer-in-charge of Jagannathpur police station, Ashok Kumar, has asked sub-inspector Srinivas Singh to step up efforts to solve the case at the earliest. Singh has also been asked to conduct random raids at all such places where hijacked tankers are kept.

“We are worried. The truck was hijacked on the night of June 18 but the owner of the vehicle informed us much later — on the evening of June 19. Initially, we thought he was cooking up stories but later, found out that the truck was indeed hijacked. An FIR was filed on June 20,” Kumar said.

The tanker was hijacked on its way to the office of Pensol Industries Limited in Namkum from Hindustan Petroleum Company Limited, Mumbai.

According to the FIR, the tanker was intercepted at Nagari by four persons in a car. They reportedly picked up a quarrel with the driver, Jiyalal Yadav, accusing him of dashing the vehicle.

When the driver got down to check whether any damage was done to the car, the hijackers overpowered him and drugged him at gunpoint. Yadav was found in an unconscious state about 15km from the spot where the tanker was stopped, the FIR said.