CHENNAI: The city police have arrested four auto drivers for allegedly abducting a group of guest workers from Bihar and illegally placing them with a different employer.

The accused were identified as Napoleon (35) from Pattinapakkam, Mahendran (38) from Thoraipakkam, Mani (40) and Narayanamoorthy (30).

The police said that five guest workers from Bihar had arrived at the Chennai Central railway station on Monday. The group, Sadhu Kumar (23), Bhawan Kumar (23), Gulshan Manjhi (19), Rango Kumar (20) and Mukesh Kumar (22), had hired an autorickshaw outside the railway station to travel to Pattaravakkam to meet the agent who hired them for work, Narendran.

The accused auto drivers promised the guest workers they would be taken to Pattaravakkam, but took a different route. They then took the agent's phone number from one of the workers and demanded that he pay up Rs 1,500 per worker to drop them.

The drivers then allegedly took the five men to Athipattu in Ambattur and handed over the men to another agent. They took a commission of Rs 8,500 from the agent and left.

After Narendran filed a complaint at the Flower Bazaar station, the officers tracked Sadhu's phone, located the guest workers, and brought them to safety. All four drivers were subsequently arrested. The police said the recruiter from the Ambattur company remains at large and efforts are on to trace him.