With the arrest of its six active members,the Mohali district police on Monday claimed to have busted an inter-state gang of vehicle lifters and recovered 15 vehicles from them. Four other members of the gang were still on the run and more stolen vehicles were in their possession. The gangsters used to buy total damaged vehicles from insurance companies and use their engine,chasis,registration numbers on stolen vehicles before selling them to gullible customers. The gang was active in Delhi,Noida,Faridabad,Ghaziabad and other parts of Uttar Pradesh,from where they used to lift the vehicles before selling them in Chandigarh,Panchkula,Mohali and other parts of Punjab. Sharing the major breakthrough with the media this afternoon,Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said the police were on the lookout of the absconding members of the gang,whom they expect to apprehend shortly with at least 10 more stolen vehicles,which the arrested gangsters have confessed to have been possessed by their accomplices. Divulging on the modus operandi,Bhullar said the officials concerned of the insurance companies were also hand in glove with the gangsters as they used to sell them total damaged vehicles at throwaway prices without intimating the concerned vehicle registration authority and transport officer,which was otherwise mandatory as per law. Without getting the entry of total damaged vehicles recorded in the official records,the gangsters used the chasis,engine and registration numbers of total damaged vehicles on stolen vehicles,which make them genuine sellers, said he. SSP said a gang member Iqbal Hussain of Rampur in was an expert,who used to punch the fake numbers on stolen vehicles with so much accuracy that no ordinary person could ever detected the fraud. On a tip-off,our CIA staff team intercepted the gangsters when they were driving in the stolen vehicles at Patiala Chowk in Zirakpur, revealed Bhullar. Besides Hussain,Daljit Singh of Banur,Gursewak Singh of Bhabat (Zirakpur),Rajesh Verma of Phase IX,Mohali,Sukhwant Singh of Bhadson (Patiala) and Varinder Singh alias Soni of Bhagomajra (Mohali) were arrested. Those on the run have been identified as Chetan of Zirakpur,Harpreet Singh alias Bhoora of Kajheri (Chandigarh),Iqbal of Muradabad,Bhagatdeep Singh of Amritsar,Raju of Delhi and Kaalu of Saharanpur. The recovered vehicles included two Hyundai Verna,three Tata Indigo,three Tata Indica Vista,two Tata Indica,two Maruti Alto and one each Maruti Zen,Maruti 800 and another vehicle,of which the chasis and engine were segregated. The gangsters have confessed to be possessing a Tata Safari Dicor,two Mahindra Balero,two Tata Indigo and one each Mitsubishi Lancer,Hyundai Verna,Maruti Swift,Hyundai Santro and Maruti Zen.
