Bicycle thief takes Bengaluru cops & techies for a ride

BENGALURU: Techies with a passion for cycling received a jolt on Thursday as police entered Bagmane Solarium City, Brookefield, and randomly began seizing bicycles identified by an alleged thief accompanying them as stolen ones.
As the thief went on identifying the bicycles he claimed he had stolen and sold them to techies, Mahadevapura police started impounding them. Most techies objected to the police move. Police asked the owners of the seized cycles to prove their ownership before reclaiming them. By Friday, two of the 14 seized bicycles were returned to the owners after ownership was confirmed.
Mahadevapura police did not reveal the identity of the thief or details of his custody. They said he is said to have stolen over 100 bicycles and they have recovered 32 of them from various parts of the city.
Several employees had a tough time recovering their bikes after workhours.
A techie told TOI: "The employees, whose bicycles were seized, were given about 10 minutes to prove ownership. Or else, they were directed to visit the police station with the receipt of purchase. But many employees had bought their cycles from their hometowns and some bikes were at least five years old. Searching for receipts was next to impossible."
"Many of us are new to Bengaluru and we thought it's a biker-friendly town. We were treated like criminals at the police station, made to wait for 3-4 hours. They took our pictures for no reason. We faced language problem in dealing with the police," said one employee of an IT major.
An employee of another IT firm said police asked him to produce the original bill. "The bill was in my hometown. Fortunately, Decathlon was sweet enough to send me a soft copy, understanding my plight. It was a pathetic experience. We are responsible citizens and we do not buy stolen goods. Police did not even have the courtesy of seeking our permission before impounding them from the parking lot," he said.
An IT firm staffer said, "With great difficulty we are getting employees back to office. Incidents like these are a major put-off. While we are urging our employees to use bicycles from sustainability perspective, this is the kind of experience they have to go through with police. Very sad state of affairs."
Mahadevapura police told TOI they seized the bicycles identified by the suspect. Earlier last week, cops launched a manhunt for the thief after receiving two back-to-back complaints saying their bicycles, which were locked, were stolen. "We seized 14 cycles from Bagmane. Two of them were returned to their owners after they proved ownership like old photos with the bicycle or a copy of the bill. In all, we recovered 32 cycles," an investigating officer said.
About the procedure to be followed by those not having old bills, cops said, "Any other proof like photos taken with the bicycle or old CCTV footage from apartment or office showing the owner with the cycle should do."
DCP (Whitefield) S Girish told TOI none of the cycles seized belonged to engineers. The accused had sold 12 cycles to the security staff at throwaway price of Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000, while their original cost was between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000, the officer claimed. "All the stolen cycles were sold to the security wing staff, who roam around in bicycles inside the campus. The main receiver of the stolen cycles works inside the tech park itself. When such is the case, police had to take the suspect to the spot to verify the claims."