Karkala, October 2: A team of Karkala Police led by Inspector Promod Kumar busted a vehicle theft gang and seized 14 tippers, worth over Rs.2 crore, after arresting two persons.
The arrested were Iqbal (43), a resident of Yenneole in Karkala and Bantwal based Ibrahim (29), who is currently residing at Ganjimath.
Police have stepped up efforts to nab remaining accused Habeeb, Sathish, Bhaskar, Nasir from Bajje, who are absconding. Many cases of theft have been already registered in Shimoga and Chitradurga, against Habeeb.
All these are said to be relatives and were into sand transportation business. At the same time these were threatening people saying that they are close aid of a state minister to get their work done easily.
Among 14 tippers one is stolen from Hassan, and about the rest investigation is in process. Police have suspected the involvement of a few officials from the Road Transportation Department in this racket.
The racket was unearthed while Inspector Pramod and PSI B S Ravi were investigating a case of theft that took place in January in the jurisdiction of Karkala Police Station.
Nasir, a resident of Kundapura had lodged a complaint of his tipper theft, but, never contacted the police again. Police suspected his part in the theft gang.
It is said that Sathish, Bhaskar and Habeeb were together conspiring to steal the vehicles. Ibrahim later joined this gang. They used to steal vehicles from Udupi and Mangalore, then sell them in Mysore and other places.
Interestingly they used to get registered the vehicles from Mysore, in the Regional Transport Offices of Udupi and Mangalore. And they also used to apply for bank loan on the same vehicles. After using the vehicles for around three months, they used to change the registration numbers and make false documents and sell the vehicles, police sources said.
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