Cops catch car thieves using toddler for recce

MOHALI: Police on Monday claimed to have busted an inter-state gang of vehicle thieves, with the arrest of three persons, including a woman, and recovered five cars, including two SUVs, and equipment required to steal cars.

The accused have been identified as Ankit, a resident of Aleava village in Jind, Harpreet Singh, a resident of Vadalla in Amritsar, and Saroj, a resident of Jattanwala Chotra village in Patiala. All of them were living in Savastik Vihar, Zirakpur.


Their modus operandi was the woman conducted recce of houses where they could strike with the help of her three-year-old son to avoid suspicion. The next job was that of the men. They used to break windowpane of passenger’s side or use a master key, destroy GPS trackers, if installed, and drive away the vehicle. “They bought damaged cars and changed their engine and chassis number with the stolen vehicles and sold them in Delhi,” said police.
On February19 and 20, the gang had taken away two Toyota Fortuner SUVs from sectors 69 and 79. Two separate cases had been registered at Sohana and Phase VIII police station.


Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Harcharan Singh Bhullar, “The gang was active in Haryana, Delhi, Mohali, Chandigarh and other districts of Punjab for last two months. A number of vehicle theft cases are registered against them across the region. They were presently operating from Zirakpur,”

“We have recovered two Toyota Fortuner, a Maruti Celerio, a Maruti Swift and a Hyundai Santro car and fake number plates and keys from the accused. We are hoping to recover more vehicles once we arrest another member of the gang,” the SSP said. “The accused had good connections with scrap dealers and bought damaged cars from them. They also used keys and ECM (engine control module) of damaged vehicle to steal the cars,” he added.