Amid space crunch, impounded vehicles dumped on roadsides in Ludhiana

At least 4,000 vehicles are gathering rust at police stations and police posts in Division Number 8, Division Number 5, Tibba, Jamalpur, Moti Nagar and Sadar

The Ludhiana police are grappling with a major space crunch at police station compounds, being forced to dump hundreds of vehicles and other impounded articles on the roadsides.

(Gurpreet Singh/HT)

At least 4,000 vehicles are gathering rust at police stations and police posts in Division Number 8, Division Number 5, Tibba, Jamalpur, Moti Nagar and Sadar.

On May 31 at Basti Jodhewal police station, 45 vehicles, dumped on the roadside, were gutted in a fire.

According to police personnel, they can only dispose of vehicles and other articles after the related cases are disposed of in the courts.

A station house officer, on the condition of anonymity, said that some vehicles, dumped for as long as three decades, were totally damaged, but could not be disposed of as the cases were sub judice.

Another SHO said that sometimes people didn’t come back for the vehicles either for lack of documents, or because the vehicle was old or they had already taken a claim from insurance companies.

At division number 5 police station, a Mahindra Scorpio and a Hyundai i20 car have been dumped on the roadside outside the station. The vehicles were seized on March 25 from Gurdev Nagar in an attempt to murder case. The police had punctured the tyres of the vehicles so no one would steal them.

Commissioner of police Rakesh Agrawal said that they were working on returning the vehicles to the owners.