Now sting operation to nab car lifters in Asom

Guwahati, Jan 17 (UNI) After the elected representatives of the people and film stars, car thieves in Asom will be the next targets of 'sting operations'.

As the incidences of hired vehicles going missing increased over the years, the district administration of Jorhat has come up with a novel idea to tackle the problem. Each taxi stand in the town would be provided with digital cameras to photograph the people who come to hire the vehicles.

Jorhat Deputy Commissioner (DC) L A Sangsan, talking to UNI over phone, confirmed that the cameras would be distributed within seven days. ''The scheme will be extended to other areas depending on the success here,'' she added.

The last few years have witnessed a sharp rise in number of cars going missing after being hired out. The modus operandi in most cases is that the car lifters pose as passengers and take the cars on hire.

Then, at a designated place, they physically abuse the driver, throw him out of the car and drive away with the vehicle. In some cases, of course, the driver is also a party to the gang.

While insurgents have been suspected to be behind many such incidents, professional car lifting gangs also actively operate in this mode.

The Jorhat town taxi stands have a process of registration of names and addresses of the people who hire the vehicles. ''But this proves highly inadequate since the criminals will never use their real names or addresses,'' Ms Sangsan said.

The DC informed that under the new plan, the five taxi owners' associations in the town had been asked to maintain a photographic record of the passengers. The associations would provide the digital cameras in seven days.

She said, '' The passengers will be photographed and names registered before they can take a vehicle on hire. We hope the measure will be a deterrent to such organised gangs of car thieves.'' Taxi driver R Phukan, who has been driving a Maruti Van for five years now, said the initiative would benefit the taxi owners as well as drivers to a great extent.

He said, ''The system will at least ensure that we can drive out with the knowledge that the photographs of the passengers could be circulated if something goes wrong.'' He informed that till the digital cameras were provided, the drivers were using the cameras installed in mobile phones.

The first six months of 2006 had seen disappearance of 840 vehicles across the state, with the figure to have crossed 1,200 by the year end, police sources informed.

The final figures were yet to be compiled, though capital city Guwahati led the tally with 496 reported thefts.

UNI