Delhi cops camp in Manipur for weeks to recover 10 stolen cars
Once the required cars were stolen, the gang members would fly to Delhi and drive them back to Manipur. In Manipur, they would change the chassis and engine numbers, prepare fake documents and sell them to unsuspecting buyers.
JASMEET SINGH, DCP (east district)
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police arrested a man last month for driving stolen cars from the national capital to Manipur and then followed it up over the next four weeks by recovering 10 cars from the north-eastern state, police said Monday.
The recoveries from Manipur included eight Hyundai Cretas, a Fortuner and an i20, Jasmeet Singh, deputy commissioner of police (east district), said.
DCP Singh said the breakthrough came on October 12 when a tip-off led to the arrest of a man named Mohammed Ajish Khan, a Manipur resident, who would allegedly drive to his home state in cars that were stolen from Delhi. Khan was found to be driving a stolen Hyundai Verna at the time of his arrest.
Over the next one month, an east Delhi district police team camped in Manipur and conducted searches at multiple locations to recover 10 cars. The DCP said the operation was interrupted by insurgency related violence in Manipur, but the officers drove the recovered cars through those regions to assemble them at a point from where they could be loaded on to trucks and brought to Delhi.
The overall probe revealed that this particular racket was involved in taking orders for specific car models that are in demand in Manipur and then passing on these requests to vehicle thieves in Delhi.
“Once the required cars were stolen, the gang members would fly to Delhi and drive them back to Manipur. In Manipur, they would change the chassis and engine numbers, prepare fake papers and sell them,” the DCP said, adding that the roles of some employees of the transport department in Manipur is under lens.
“Every month, the gang members would drive 10 -15 stolen cars from Delhi to Manipur. So far, they have taken away at least 100 cars,” DCP Singh said.