Police van thief wanted to modify it for adventure ride
A week after a police van was stolen from a south Delhi neighbourhood, raising concerns of its potential misuse, the vehicle was found in a parking lot in Tughlaqabad village on Monday night.
“The accused turned out to be a vehicle thief who wanted to modify the Maruti Gypsy van and use it for adventurous road trips,” said Romil Baaniya, DCP (south-east).
The thief, identified as Ajay, lives in a jhuggi in New Delhi’s Tughlaq Lane.
The white Gypsy had been hired by the Delhi Police to serve as one of its many quick response teams (QRTs) and been attached with Tughlaq Road police station.
The van’s driver had parked it in Kotla Mubarakpur village after duty on August 5. He found it missing the next morning. With Independence Day celebrations nearing, the police had launched a frantic search for it, but failed to track the vehicle.
Police found the van whil probing another car theft. It so happened that Ajay had stolen two other cars this year. He had parked all three of them in a public parking lot in a Tughlaqabad locality.
Recently, he wanted to sell off one of the vehicles, a Suzuki Swift car. But the potential buyer he contacted sensed that the car was stolen.
He alerted the police after which a team swooped down on the parking lot where the car was parked. The policemen spotted the Gypsy parked there.
“The Gypsy was parked such that its front portion was not visible. When the vehicle was checked, the policemen realised it could be the stolen Gypsy,” said an investigator.
The accused rents out two cars that he owns for a living. But his background revealed that he had two other cases, one under Arms Act and another of theft, registered against him in the past.