Wheelie craze lands teenager in cop’s hands

BENGALURU: The craze for wheelies and desire to show off on social media led to the arrest of an 18-year-old boy and the recovery of an expensive bike that he stole from the railway parcel office at Yeshwanthpur.Thanks to the teenager’s twin obsessions, the case, cracked ten days ago, proved to be a cakewalk for the Railway Protection Force (RPF).

Yesvanthpur RPF Inspector R D Samudre, who led the investigating team, said that a new Duke KTM bike valued at `1.8 lakh in the market was booked at the parcel office on January 26 for delivery at Tatanagar in Jharkhand. The owner had gone back from the city to his native place in Jharkhand. The vehicle had a Jharkhand number plate.

“A couple of friends of the owner booked the luggage for delivery,” he said. “After a few days, when the friends realised that the delivery never happened, they wrote a complaint at the parcel office,” he added.
The supervisor of the parcel office approached the RPF only on March 19 and reported the missing luggage. Suspecting that it was the job of someone who knew loading and unloading work quite well, the RPF collected the list of everyone who worked for the contractor at the parcel office. “We narrowed down the list to those who had quit the job or were sacked,” he said.

Through inquiries at the parcel office and informers, the cops understood that Subhash was fond of doing wheelies on motorbikes. A casual online search about him revealed an astounding detail. “The boy had put up a picture of him on Facebook with the KTM bike for his friends to see. He had managed to change the number plate to a Karnataka registration. So, we already had the confirmation that he had the bike and decided to nab him immediately,” he said.

A team comprising the inspector, two sub-inspectors, Krishnoji Rao and Puttanna Gowda, and a couple of constables went in civilian clothes and a personal car to inspect nearby highways. “We were coming from Nelamangala to the city when we spotted two boys standing with their bikes at a street corner around midnight. We approached them and easily spotted Subhash with the stolen KTM with friend Vijay,” Samudre said.

The teenager confessed that after the supervisor asked him to leave the job within a few months due to his behaviour, he was keen on taking away a bike. Subhash clearly knew the spot where bikes were placed before loading on to trains and the fact that they were not locked as loading had to take place. “The youngster confessed to us that he just wanted to have some fun by using it for a few months and later would abandon it,” the inspector said. He has been arrested and let out on bail. The KTM bike has been handed over to the court now for the owner to claim it.