Bike-lifters’ gang busted, 20 stolen bikes recovered

PILIBHIT: A Bareilly-based gang of bike-lifters was busted by a joint special team of district police, special weapons and tactics wing and surveillance cell.
The team arrested three members while two managed to flee. The police booked and sent them to jail on Sunday afternoon. The cops recovered 20 stolen bikes from their possession in addition to dismantled parts of a bike.
The operation against bike-lifters was enforced following the orders of superintendent of police (SP), Manoj Kumar Sonkar, after a surge in number of bike-lifting cases touching the 'century mark' in a span of three-and-a-half months between January 1 and April 15.
According to the SP, a joint police team collected information on bike-lifters by following CCTV camera footages installed by the cops in places where such incidents are frequent.
The bike-lifters followed a particular modus operandi of stealing bikes parked outside hospitals, nursing homes, banquet halls and banks. The gang members used to unlock the bikes and take them away.
The arrested gang members were Ali Hassan alias Munna, a resident of Sethal under Hafizganj police station; Abid Khan of Hafizganj town; and Mohammad Nazir of Khamaria village under Devrania police station; all in Bareilly district, the SP said.
They were arrested from Eidgah Colony under Sungarhi police station on Saturday where they had kept five stolen bikes. Of the remaining 15 bikes, nine were recovered by the police from Ali Hassan’s house, five from Abid Khan’s bike repairing centre ‘Abid Auto Service’ in Hafizganj, and one bike along with dismantled parts from Mohammad Nazir’s Bharat Auto Service Center in Jadonpur village under Bhojipura police station.
The arrested bike-lifters who confessed to their crime were booked by Sungarhi police station on Sunday under sections 401, 411 413 and 414 of IPC and were sent to prison while the police have started looking for the other two absconders, the SP added.