Stolen bikes being used as wood cutting machine

JAIPUR: Your stolen bike is most likely to end up as a wood cutter machine or as a jugad in some dusty corner of rural Rajasthan.

According to Jaipur police, there is a glut of stolen bikes in grey market. Many villagers themselves are wary of purchasing bikes from reprobate salesman selling a Rs 45,000 bike for Rs 10,000.

Speaking to TOI, additional DCP (Jaipur East) Hanuman Prasad said that it takes Rs 2,000 to dismantle a perfectly new bike. “The spared parts are much sought after. They can be used in machine making, and used as engine to power jugads,” he said, adding that sometimes bikes are stolen just for tyres.

“They take off tyres and sell them separately,” he said.

The police officials said that after cutting bike into multiple pieces, each part is carefully extracted and sold in packets as genuine. The police had recently busted vehicle lifters from across the city who admitted that they had not been getting fare prices for their “hard work.”

“Many people in villages are now highly suspicious of buying such vehicles from second hand sellers. They ask for original papers and range of documents which becomes an impossible task for the accused to provide,” added another official.

Jugads, though banned in across the state, are still most favoured mode of traveling in the interiors of Rajasthan. The bike is tied to a trolley and turned into a jugad. Apart from this omnipresent rural mode of transportation, bike engines also widely used for irrigation purposes as water pumps etc.

The Jaipur police in past one year have arrested over 400 vehicle lifters, many of whom with a previous criminal record for the criminal record in theft and carjacking.