Senior Superintendent of Police HS Bhullar said the gang consisted of at least eight members. “We have identified most of them after the arrest of the trio. Raids are on to nab the remaining members of the gang,” said the SSP.
The top cop of the district added that the trio was nabbed at Swastik Vihar in Zirakpur. “They were in a Swift car, which they used to conduct recce before stealing vehicles. The suspects had affixed a fake registration number to the Swift car,” said SSP Bhullar. During their interrogation, the suspects confessed that they had stolen two Fortuner SUVs — one from Sector 69 and the other from Sector 79 in Mohali — last month. The police recovered both the vehicles following their revelation. “The accused were using fake registration numbers on both the SUVs. Later, our team also recovered a Celerio and a Santro from their possession,” said SSP Bhullar. He said the Celerio car was stolen from the Rohini area in New Delhi.
About the modus operandi of the gang, SSP Bhullar said they used to purchase total damaged vehicles and used their engine numbers and chassis numbers on the stolen vehicles, before selling these at different places. “They had several tools to change the engine and chassis numbers of vehicles,” said SSP Bhullar. Ankit was already facing several cases of vehicle thefts, said the police.
With the trio’s arrest, the police said they were hopeful of solving several other cases of vehicle lifting in the area.
A case under Sections 379, 411, 465, 467, 468, 471, 473, 489 and 120B of the IPC and Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act has been registered against them at the Zirakpur police station.
Woman carried kid to avoid suspicion
The police claimed that while committing crime, Sonia, one of the suspects, used to take her three-year-old daughter along so as to avoid suspicion. She was produced in a court, which sent her to judicial custody.
Man held with pistol
Mohali: The police arrested a man with a .32-bore pistol and two live cartridges here. The suspect has been identified as Sanjay Gupta, a native of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, who was putting up in Phase 2, Mohali. According to the police, the suspect had purchased the weapon for Rs 60,000 from Agra. The police claimed that he was into lottery business and facing financial crunch of late. “He had purchased the weapon with an intention to commit a robbery,” said the police. A case under Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act has been registered against him at the Kharar police station here.
