Inter state carjacker gang busted, claims HP Police

Dharamshala, Feb 3 (UNI) The Himachal Pradesh Police today claimed to have busted an inter-state gang of carjackers with the arrest of its woman member.

Jagir Kaur, 58, was arrested at Beas in Punjab by the Himachal Police on Thursday following a complaint by a taxi driver who alleged that she along with four other people had drven away in his vehicle, while he was asleep, Kangra DSP Bindoo Sachdeva told UNI here yesterday.

Jagir and her daughter, Bitto, and three other people hired an Indica car for paying obeisance at Jawalamukhi temple in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh on January 28, last month.

After paying their obeisance at the temple, they rented two rooms in a local hotel from where all the five drove away in the car at 0330 hrs while the taxi driver was asleep, Ms Scahdeva said.

The taxi driver lodged a complaint with the police early next morning. The police recovered a driving licence of one of the gang members from the hotel room during the investigation.

A police team was then dispatched to the address mentioned on the driving licence and arrested Jagir Kaur, who was identified by the driver as one of the persons who had hired his taxi for a trip to the Jawalamukhi temple, Ms Sachdeva said.

The DSP said during interrogation jagir told the police that she was into car jacking to tide over the financial crises facing her family.

Ms Sachdeva said Jagir Kaur earlier identified herself as the daughter of a noted Punjabi singer Puran Chand Wadalia, a claim she withdrew early today saying, the noted singer was her uncle (her father's elder brother).

The arrest of Jagir will help in solving several other cases of car thefts in the region, police said.

Other members of the gang identified as Jaswant Singh, Bitto, Kali and Deepu, were absconding and efforts were on to arrest them at the earliest.

A case has been registered and investigations were on, she added.

UNI