Bike lifting gang busted in Odisha, 55 bikes recovered & 5 arrested

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Baliguda, Nov 29:

Odisha’s Kandhamal Police yesterday got a big break in the ever increasing bike theft cases in the district when they busted an inter-district gang of five and recovered a whopping 55 stolen motorcycles from them.

As per information provided by Kandhamal police, they had received many complaints of bike thefts in the district during last Dusserah and were trying to crack the gang.

It got a big break yesterday when it arrested Montu Mallick from Gunjarpodi village under Baliguda police limits. During interrogation, he confessed stealing some of the bikes and accommodating stolen bikes by others. The cops also figured out that his associates stole vehicles from various neighboring districts including Nayagarh, Ganjam Berhampur, Bhanjanagar, Bolangir and Kalahandi.

Based on intelligence collected from Montu, the cops arrested four more of his associates including Samir alias Soumya Ranjan Digal of Kampoda, Judhistira Mallick of Linepalli, Amit Nayak of Sindrigaon (all under Baliguda PS) and Sriram alias Ramesh Subudhi of Khurda Dist.

Besides, they also seized 55 stolen motor cycles of different make and models. The seized vehicles include 15 Hero Honda Splendour/ Splendour Plus bikes, 16 Hero Honda Passion Plus/ Passion Pro bikes, 7 Hero Honda Glamour bikes, 7 Bajaj Pulsar bikes, 4 TVS Apache RTR bikes, and six others vehicles ( CD Delux-1, TVS Star City- 1, Bajaj Discover- 2, Hero Honda Extreme-1, Hero Honda Karizma- 1).

As per sources in the police, the accused men are professional bike lifters and steal motorcycles for a living. They used to sell the vehicles in neighboring states after stealing them. The cops suspect involvement of even more elements in the racket and are planning to send teams to other districts for further inquiry.

The stolen motorcycles have been identified to be from Phulbani and adjacent areas and the actual ownership of the vehicles are under verification.