Arrest of auto thieves leads cops to 'car mortuary' in Haryana

NEW DELHI: It takes regular tax-paying citizens months – sometimes years – to save for and buy a luxury car. For thieves, however, it takes only hours to steal the car, dismantled it into pieces and sell its parts in the market for a few thousands of rupees.

Once such racket was busted by South East Delhi Police, who discovered a 'car mortuary' in Haryana's Hodal where spare parts of over 60 costly cars were used to create 'jugaad' vehicles – small temporary transport vehicles.

DCP (South East) Romil Baaniya on Friday said that five men were arrested for stealing expensive SUVs and sedans from different parts of Delhi, dismantling the cars and take out the costly spare parts to be sold to different customers to make 'jugaad' vehicles.

Police said that investigation on a stolen Hyundai Santro car led them to the 'car mortuary' Hodal, in Haryana's Palwal district.

To their astonishment, a large heap of dismantled spare parts of vehicles was found. These included chassis, front doors, rear doors, desk boards, engines, twelve electronic car modules (ECM) and among other parts

Moreover, six oxygen cylinders, two CNG cylinders and one small LPG Cylinder, which was fitted with a gas cutter on one side and an Oxygen cylinder on the other side, were also found.

Baaniya further told reporters that the dismantled spare parts of two other stolen vehicles were also recovered.

The vehicles are being verified from the manufactures through the engine number and ECMs.

Investigators stated that they discovered more than 60 spare parts of cars lying in the mortuary and the gang was busted after they stole a car from Jangpura area. The stolen car was fitted with a GPS device, which pointed to the last known location of the vehicle in Hodal.