Two gangs of auto lifters busted, 9 arrested

BATHINDA: After a spate of vehicle thefts in the district, Bathinda police have busted two different gangs of auto lifters. The police have arrested 9 persons in two different cases in two days and have recovered 19 stolen motorcycles and 6 scooters. The market value of the recovered two-wheelers has been assessed at Rs 5 lakh. In both the cases, the arrested persons are between 20 to 30 years of age and most of them are unemployed.
In the first case, the police on Monday on a tip-off arrested Gagan Singh and Jagdeep Singh of village Kailey Wander, Hajit singh of Kotshamir and Gurpreet singh of Pakka Kalan. The fifth member of the gang Mithu singh of village Rayia in Sirsa district of Haryana is still at large. The four were arrested with stolen two stolen motorcycles from Jassi Chowk in Bathinda city.

The police recovered 3 motorcycles from the residence of Gurpreet singh and two stolen bikes from the residence of Gagan singh, said Bathinda SP (city) Gurmeet Singh. All arrested were addicts and used to take drugs after stealing bikes, he added.

In another case, the police on Tuesday arrested Gurpiar Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Gurdev Singh of village Fallad in Bathinda, Bhupinder Kumar and Happy Kumar of Bathinda city on two motorcycles and a scooter from near Mittal Mall at Bathinda. During investigations, the police recovered 2 scooters from the residence of Bhupinder Kumar, three from the residence of Happy Kumar, two motorcycles from the residence of Gurpiar Singh, three motorcycles from the residence of Gurdev singh and five motorcycles from the residence of Gupreet singh.

SP said that in both the cases, the gang members were active for nearly an year and their area of operation was Bathinda city and nearby small towns. In some instances, they sold off the stolen vehicles after changing the registration numbers.