TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: In a major breakthrough, Panjim town police busted a two-member bikes theft racket and recovered 12 geared and non-geared two-wheelers, which were hidden at various locations. Incidentally, one of them is a dismissed Goa Police employee.
Former Lower Division Clerk with the police department’s account section Vishal Sawant (22) and his accomplice Pratik Chichleakar (33) from Belgaum in Karnataka have been involved in a series of bike theft cases until their arrest on Wednesday.
Panjim police inspector Rajendra Prabhudesai said the breakthrough was possible while an investigation into some of the recent bike theft complaints registered with them. The stolen bikes – 3 Yamaha motorcycles, 5 Activas, 2 Aviators, 2 Dios and 1 Suzuki Access, were recovered from Chimbel, Altinho, St Inez, KTC Bus Stand and Agassaim. Among the lot, 2 bikes were stolen from GMCpremise.
“Vishal would often target the unlocked bikes and manually drag them to a certain spot from where he would manage to take them to their secret destination. Whereas Pratik is an expert in breaking steering locks,” Prabhudesai stated, disclosing the duo’s modus operandi during an interaction with the media persons.
As both have been remanded to one day police custody for custodial interrogation, preliminary investigation has revealed they would sell the stolen bikes for Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000. The buyers, majority of whom were familiar to the thieves, were convinced that they would get RC books after a few days.
Prabhudesai said they expect to solve many more bike lifting cases reported across the State, saying the respective police stations where such complaints have been filed can take charge of the stolen bikes.
As of now, two cases have been registered at Agassaim police station and the remaining at Panjim police station has been solved. According to the police records, Vishal was dismissed for being irregular at work. He was also accused of cheating several people including job aspirants of a whopping Rs 22 lakh. It is learnt that the jobless youth then tagged along with Pratik to steal bikes and together stayed at Porvorim.
