Delhi Police bust interstate gang of auto thieves, 5 held

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu) :The Delhi Police on Monday said that it has busted a gang of auto-thieves in the Burari area of north Delhi and has arrested five members of the gang, including three minors, leading to the solving of at least 58 cases of vehicle theft. The police launched the operations after several cases of bike and auto thefts were lodged in Burari. It constituted a dedicated team to work on the cases and nab the culprits. The team members started analysing CCTV footage, at least from 250 sources, of all the spots during which 6 persons were found involved in all vehicle thefts and the face of one of them was found clearly captured in the CCTV cameras while stealing the motorcycle of one of the complainants, it said. “The team members finally reached Khajuri Chowk, Bhajanpura, and activated their informers and shared the photographs of the suspects to the secret sources to find out the clues about the culprits. Finally, the team succeeded in identifying one of the suspects," a police statement, said, adding that he was picked up and questioned and revealed that two other persons who live in Khajuri Khas used to hire them to steal two-wheelers from different areas of Delhi and paid Rs 1,000 per motorcycle. It said, the team members along with a local staff of Loni Border Police Station, reached the warehouse of Md Farooq at 100 Foot Road, near Tyagi Builder, Saraswati Vihar, Loni, Ghaziabad, and found 11 bikes parked there and multiple parts of bikes scattered everywhere. Md Farooq was interrogated and admitted that he had been dealing in stolen vehicles for the past one year, the statement said further. "He had purchased about 300-350 two-wheelers from them in the last 5-6 months. Prior to that, he used to purchase stolen bikes from other auto thieves who had also sold about 200-250 bikes to him. He used to dismantle the bikes in parts at his warehouse and then sell those parts to his customers," police said. Police arrested Md Farooq and all the bikes and parts recovered from his warehouse were taken into the police's possession. Accused persons, namely Md Farooq and Hasan Khan, were taken on remand and during interrogation, nine more two-wheelers were recovered at their instances. Efforts are being made to trace out the remaining co-accused persons and to affect more recovery, the police said. During interrogation from accused Hasan Khan, it was disclosed that he is a drug addict and due to his addiction, he used to steal two-wheelers. He and his friends used to hire minor children to steal two-wheelers from all over Delhi. They used to sell the stolen vehicles to Md Farooq, who is a permanent resident of West Bengal. He has been living in Indirapuri, Loni on rent for the last 8-10 years and is an auto mechanic by profession, the police added.