Out of one lakh vehicles stolen in capital 3 years, only 9,591 recovered

New Delhi: In three years more than one lakh cases of motor vehicle theft were reported in the National Capital. Interestingly, cops were able to recover only 9,591 vehicles with the arrest of more than ten thousand accused.

The data accessed by Millennium Post shows that till October 15 this year around 32,239 cases of motor vehicle theft had been registered of which 3,321 vehicles were recovered and 4,303 accused were arrested. In 2016, 38,644 cases reported of which only 4,473 vehicles were recovered and 5,069 charged were arrested. The year 2015 saw 32,729 cases with the recovery of just 1,797 cars and 1500 arrests.

According to a senior police official, one of the reasons for the rising theft one was the acute shortage of parking space and the general practice of parking the vehicles on the roadside. "Unwillingness of a majority of motor vehicle owners to install anti-theft equipment is one of the major contributing factors of motor vehicle theft," he said.

A Police source explained the modus operandi of gangs specialising in vehicle theft. After stealing high-end cars from the posh areas of Delhi, gang members drive the stolen vehicles to Meerut and dismantle them there. The car parts are then sold in Lucknow, Meerut and other cities in Uttar Pradesh. Recently, a wagon R previously used by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal went missing from outside the Delhi Secretariat.

In April, South-East Delhi police busted a gang of auto-lifters who allegedly used state-of-the-art gadgets to steal luxury cars after receiving "orders" from buyers of stolen property. In another car theft case, the accused procured documents of a car severely damaged in an accident, along with other scraps. He then stole another vehicle of the same make and replaced the chassis number of the wrecked vehicle with that of the stolen one to resell it at an attractive price.