GHAZIABAD: Police busted an interstate gang of vehicle lifters, arresting four members from the Kavi Nagar area on Thursday night. Police claimed the gang has stolen over 300 two- and four-wheelers in the past ten years.
The gang leader, Jogender Singh (47), is a resident of Hapur. So far, police have found 37 cases lodged against Jogender in different police stations of Delhi-NCR, Ghaziabad and Hapur. His three associates, Sandeep Sharma (33), Ramsushil Chaupal (22) and Sahil (21), are from Haryana.
The accused were booked under IPC sections 379 (theft), 420 (cheating), and 482 (punishment for using a false property mark). They were sent to judicial custody after police produced them in front of the court.
Police have recovered 13 vehicles, including five four-wheelers and eight two-wheelers, along with several parts of vehicles, from the accused. Cars such as Honda City, Swift, Wagon R, Swift Dzire and Alto were also recovered, along with scooters and motorcycles.
Avnish Kumar, circle officer, Kavi Nagar, said that the police have been receiving several complaints regarding vehicle thefts from the residents of Kavi Nagar. Cops were trying to trace the gang with the help of inputs from surveillance and human sources. “We have been keeping an eye on the movement of Jogender for some time now and once we confirmed that Jogender was running a gang, we caught him from the Rajnagar District Centre, along with a stolen car,” Kumar said.
“Jogender revealed some of the accused’s names, which helped us arrest the other three. But Neeraj, his ‘right hand’ man, is absconding and we are trying to trace him,” added Kumar. Talking about the modus operandi, Kumar said the gang used to steal vehicles from public areas and sell them to scrap dealers in Sonipat, Haryana, after changing plate numbers. Before that, the gang used to sell vehicles to scrap dealers in Meerut and Ghaziabad.
