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The Jajpur police on Tuesday claimed to have solved the mystery behind the disappearance of several vehicles in the area with the arrest of a scrap dealer who is the part of a three-member vehicle lifter gang.
The other two include a mechanic and a vehicle thief.
As per reports, Prasanna Panda, a resident of Jagatpur in Cuttack had filed a theft complaint a month ago with the Bharatpur Police station after his four-wheeler (a Bolero jeep) went missing. However, the police were only able to trace parts of the missing vehicle a month later with the help of GPS tracker.
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"I had filed a complaint of theft at the police station over a month back. However, the police were unable to trace my vehicle even after a month until yesterday when I checked my mobile with hopes of tracking it through GPS. Based on the information obtained from the GPS location tracker, I contacted the police. We found the dismantled spares of my vehicle today in Jajpur town that included the back guard, sound box and lights," said Panda.
Following this, the police arrested Radha Biswal, a scrap dealer from Jajpur's Sitaleswar village, in connection with the theft case.
During interrogation, Biswal allegedly spilled the beans that led to unravelling the mystery behind a well-organised gang’s operation in executing several planned vehicle robberies in and around the area.
In fact, the modus operandi of the gang has an uncanny resemblance with a Bollywood pot boiler wherein the trinity of a mechanic, vehicle thief and scrap dealer (Kabadiwala) gang up in stealing vehicles from the nearby areas in the district.
Elaborating further, police said the gang would flee with the stolen two and four-wheelers after breaking open their locks with duplicate keys.
The mechanic among the trio would quickly dismantle the vehicle into spares one by one and sell those in the sly. The left over parts of the vehicles were sold as scraps through Behera’s shop.
The quick dismantling of the vehicle makes it almost impossible for the police to trace it while the thieves made hay.
"As per Behera’s confession, the gang would first target the vehicle for stealing. Using duplicate keys, the seasoned lifter would break the lock and fled with the vehicle. The vehicle would then be disposed of by scrap dealer," Saroj Upadhyay, Jajpur SDPO said.
"We have registered several vehicle theft cases since July which are being investigated. We will be able to learn more about the earlier cases during a further probe into the gang’s exploits," the police official added.
Another vehicle owner, whose vehicle has remained untraced, said, "I have no hopes of getting back my vehicle under such circumstances. I had come with the last hope to the police station, but now I don't see a chance of getting back my vehicle in one piece. They (thieves) should be severely punished, any normal punishment is not sufficient for them," he said.
