841 vehicle theft cases reported in Guwahati between January to September this year
BY OUR STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI, Dec 8: With identical modus operandi and common target areas, vehicle lifters in city continue to enjoy safe passage leaving the common man and the law-enforcing agencies guessing all the time.
Tall and recurring claims of the police of having busted inter-state car theft rackets fall flat if the latest graph of car theft instances is referred to.
Guwahati, which has emerged as the hot-bed for the wrong doers, have alone recorded 841 vehicle theft cases during the period from January to September this year. Although police maged to arrest some persons including notorious car lifters Anil Chauhan, there had been just 82 recoveries, which is less than ten per cent of the total stolen vehicles.
Police sources said during this period a total of 349 vehicle theft cases reported in Guwahati East police district and 246 cases each in Guwahati Central and West Police districts have been reported. 45 stolen vehicles have been recovered in Guwahati East police district and 19 and 18 vehicles have been recovered in West and Central districts respectively in the current year till September.
A senior Assam Police official while conceding that vehicle theft cases have emerged as a pain in the neck of the department, went on to state that the movement of the car theft rackets are being consistently monitored, as a result of which many arrests were made.
“The major drawback in dealing with the car lifters is the weak prosecution system. Even if we catch them, we have to book them in the regular theft case, which ebles them to come out of jail in a few days. There should be strong laws against them,” added the official.