The recovered scooters and arrested accused in Chandigarh. (Express Photo/Jaipal Singh)
CHANDIGARH POLICE has recovered 24 two-wheelers purchased by a five-member gang allegedly with fake financial documents. The five accused, who were arrested on March 19 and remanded in police custody, led to the recovery during their interrogation over the last three days. All five accused shall again be produced in court on Friday.
All the 24 two-wheelers were purchased from an automobile agency in Zirakpur and financed by a single finance company that has its office in Sector 22, Chandigarh. The gang, said police, is headed by Pardeep Gautam, salesman at the automobile agency. His accomplices include Sandeep Kumar, employee of the company that financed the vehicles’ loan, Sukhdev Singh of Sector 48, Surjit Singh of Hallomajra and Sanjay of Ramdarbar.
Police said they will also question the owners of the automobile agency and the finance company. Three of the 24 two-wheelers had the same temporary registration number and 11 have been sold for Rs 35,000, that is half the price, to the people of Mohali and Bathinda. The other two-wheelers were being given to people on a daily rent of Rs 100 and Rs 150 each.
SP (Crime) Ravi Kumar Singh said, “The gang members used the documents of people, whose loan applications have been rejected. In some cases, they even used the Aadhaar card details of innocent people. The scam got exposed when one of the men, Ravinder Singh, a resident of Phase-1 in Ramdarbar, got a call from an automobile agency informing him that the agency has stopped receiving instalments of a vehicle loan, obtained by him. In fact, Ravinder had not got any vehicle loan. He then raised an alarm.”
Inspector Narinder Patial, in-charge of the Operations Cell, said, “In the official record of the automobile agency, Pardeep Gautam, the prime accused, sold all these two-wheelers to fictitious customers, who, in reality, are tea vendors, motor mechanics and unemployed people, who revealed that they had only posed for the documents and did not actually buy the vehicles.”
Police sources said they had received secret information that some of the two-wheelers, being used in Hallomajra and Ramdarbar, had the same registration number. Accused Pardeep and Surjit are graduates, Sandeep is a Class XII passout, Sukhdev has cleared Class X and Sanjay is a school dropout.