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Two gangs of auto-lifters busted, four arrested
In a major breakthrough the city police on Friday busted two gangs of auto lifters. Four miscreants belonging to different gangs have been arrested and some stolen vehicles and arms seized.
In a major breakthrough the city police on Friday busted two gangs of auto lifters. Four miscreants belonging to different gangs have been arrested and some stolen vehicles and arms seized.
In the first case the Kydganj police arrested one Radha Charan Singh, member of an inter-State gang of four-wheeler lifters, who had earlier escaped from police dragnet after his accomplice Iftekhar was nabbed by the police along with a stolen Bolero in Bhadohi district on February 7, 2006.
The gang is said to have stolen more than one hundred vehicles during the past four years from Mumbai, Delhi, Allahabad and other places. The stolen vehicles had been disposed off.
Bolero had been stolen from outside the Patharchatti Ram Lila Committee office in Allahabad.
Radha Charan had been working earlier in tandem with one Chunmun Pandey of Bihar said to be the kingpin of a gang of atleast 25 members.
The gang had sold vehicles in Bihar,West Bengal and even in Bangladesh. The gang had been picking up only the bigger and attractive four-wheelers like Scorpio, Bolero, Qualis, Santro, Alto and Zen.
And they had coined interesting code names for these vehicles, like Scorpio had been nicknamed as Bichchu, Bolero as Babloo, Qualis- Koyal, Santro-Santara, Zen- Jamun, and Alto as Aloo.
Both Radha Charan and Iftekhar hailing from Pratapgarh had been employed by the gang as drivers.
Their job was to reach the stolen vehicles to the appointed place. They used to get anything between Rs 5,000-10, 000 for each vehicle delivery.
Later Radha Charan formed his own gang. He and his accomplice had no idea about the actual place to which Chunmun Pandey belongs as the kingpin used to contact them on their mobile phones for the completion of the job.
This type of camouflaged operation always poses hurdles in the path of investigation, said CO Rajesh Yadav.
However, in his confession Radha Charan has given us the mobile number of Chunmun Pandey.
If the number is still working we will have some success in the recovery of vehicles otherwise it will be nearly impossible to track down and nail the kingpin, added the CO.
Two other members of the gang identified as Riyaz and Mobin also from Pratapgarh managed to escape, police said.
Meanwhile, in another incident the Attarsuiya police nabbed three auto lifters and recovered two stolen mobikes from their possession. The nabbed persons were identified as Sanjay Soni, resident of Colonelganj, Sandeep Patel, resident of Fatehpur Bichwa and Ashish, resident of Fatehpur Bichwa. One of the mobikes, a Hero Honda Splendor, had been stolen from Ram Vatika. The other mobike Hero Honda Passion had been stolen from outside Kamori Mahadeo Temple on Smith Road.
The miscreants had earlier lifted two more mobikes from different places from the city and disposed off these vehicles.
Sanjay Soni had earlier been nabbed by the Civil Lines police in 1998 for stealing a Tata Sumo and Sandeep Patel is a declared offender under the George Town police.
The miscreants were arrested near Baluaghat after a patrolling party stopped their mobikes on suspicion. Police also recovered one .12 bore countrymade pistol from their possession.
