Inter-State Vehicle Theft Racket Busted, One Held

An inter-state vehicle lifting racket was busted in Bhubaneswar with recovery of two stolen cars from Madhya Pradesh and arrest of a person on Sunday.

The modus operandi of the accused was to steal the vehicles, change their engine and registration numbers and sell them in the market.

According to police officials, Commisionerate Police received a tip-off from Madhya Pradesh Police that the accused stole 196 vehicles from their state and sold some of them in Odisha.

“Acting on the input from Madhya Pradesh Police, we have detained one Abdul Sakur, a non-Odia resident in Gothapatna area of Bhubaneswar. We recovered a vehicle whose number plate is okay but the engine number belongs to vehicle of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh,” said Sanjeev Satpathy, Bhubaneswar Zone 5 ACP.

He added, “We have recovered a vehicle bearing the registration number of West Bengal and we suspect that it is also a stolen one.”

The accused used to buy scrap vehicles from finance institution and sold them to the scrap dealers. Before selling the vehicles in scraps he removed the original number plate and used them in the stolen vehicle with the engine and chassis numbers of the scrap cars. 

Meanwhile, refuting the allegations, the accused said that he did not sell the vehicle, he just acted as a middleman in the car deal and got his commission. When asked about the different registration number and engine number, he said only the seller can answer that.

A police team from Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha will join the investigation to identify all the stolen vehicles.