Bhubaneswar: The Commissionerate police arrested a gang of bike lifters including the mastermind and seized 20 motorcycles from its possession here Thursday. While the search for more such stolen vehicles was going on, police expects the booty toll to be more than 50.
The mastermind of the gang was identified as Dipu Sahoo alias Dipu of Sukavihar area in Raghunathnagar under the Khandagiri police limits. Dipu’s gang mostly operated in areas under Khandagiri, Airfield and Tamando police station limits. According to police sources, he possessed the duplicate master keys to unlock the vehicles first following which some of his aides would flee with the motorcycles.
During the entire process one gang member was engaged to keep an eye on the movements of the vehicle owner. After changing the number plates with fake ones, the looted vehicles were sold away in the remote areas of Kandhamal, Ganjam, Phulbani and Nayagarh.
The recovered vehicles include three each of Bajaj Pulsar, Yamaha bikes, Hero Glamour, six TVS Apache and, one each of Karizma, Honda CBZ, Unicorn, Honda Activa and Hero passion.
Sources said between the period 2012 and 2018, around 11 cases of theft were pending against the gang with Tamando and Khandagiri police, out of which 10 were registered with the Khandagiri police station alone.