Five youths from Chandigarh involved with an inter-state auto lifting racket were arrested after a brief shootout in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district, police said on Friday.
"The five, who are in the 18-20 age group, were arrested on Thursday night from a hideout in the Saklapuri town in Saharanpur," police inspector Hukum Singh said over the telephone.
He said police raided the hideout in Saharanpur, about 350 km from here, acting on a tip-off. "The five present there started firing at us. We also retaliated and it was only after an hour that we managed to arrest them. Nearly a dozen motorbikes were recovered from their possession."
The group has confessed they work for a Chandigarh-based auto lifting gang that also operates in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
"All the five youths come from middle-class families and have completed their studies till Class 12 in Chandigarh."