City police bust inter-state vehicle racket

Bangalore, May 13 (UNI) The city police have busted an inter-state vehicle lifting racket, with arrest of seven people in Mumbai and seizure of heavy transport vehicles and cars worth more than Rs three crore.

Commissioner of Police N Achyuta Rao told newspersons here today that a routine check of vehicles in the city during April helped to unearth the racket.

The Hulimavu Police arrested one Srinivasan alias Seene belonging to Salem in Tamil Nadu after he failed to produce the documents of the car in which he was travelling early this month. On questioning, he revealed that he was part of the inter-state gang, which used to lift vehicles from Mumbai and surrounding areas and sell them in Tamil Nadu.

DCP Soumendu Mukherjee, who was also present, said based on the information provided by the city police, they arrested the kingpin of the gang identified as Manikanthan. The other members of the gang were Palaniswamy, Barjan Khan, Navab Ali, Irshad, Michael and Ahudesh Paul.

A team of the city police then went to Tamil Nadu and seized 17 vehicles including eight tippers, lorries and luxury cars. Meanwhile, the Mumbai Police also seized six more vehicles.

The gang had so far stolen more than 100 vehicles from Maharashtra and Manikanthan was running a car rental service in Salem with a big fleet of luxury cars stolen from Mumbai, the DCP added.

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