Car lifting bid ends with accident in Kurseong

EOI, Kurseong, 28 April 2014: In a farcical incident, a stolen car met with an accident near the Kurseong Tourist Lodge around 2pm this afternoon when the thief was making away with the stolen vehicle.

Police sources said Kalyan Thapa, a resident of MV Road in town had parked his Maruti vehicle, WB-77-4131 in the premises of the Kurseong Railway Institute near the tourist lodge.

Around 2pm, a car lifter named Puran Tamang, (36), a resident of Gauri-Shankar tea estate under Kurseong sub-division, succeeded in prying open one of the doors of the vehicle, got into it, ignited the engine and had even started driving away with the car when mishap occurred and he happened to crash the stolen car on NH 55 near the Kurseong Tourist Lodge, or precisely 30ft below on the link road and the would-be thief sustained injuries.

The staff members and customers of the Tourist Lodge, who were unaware of the theft and the identity of the injured driver, rushed to the site and took him to hospital for necessary treatment.

But after Tamang was being treated at the emergency ward of the hospital and advised to get admitted for proper treatment, he declined as he probably understood that doing so would release his true identity and he would get into trouble. As soon as he received first-aid treatment and Tamang trying to leave the hospital, the police arrived and put him under arrest.

At present, Tamang the would-be car lifter is receiving medical treatment at the Kurseong sub-division hospital under police custody.

Meanwhile, Thapa uses his car to transporting school children to and from a school located in the same area. Since there was still an hour or the school to get over for the day, he had parked his vehicle at the of the Railway Institute and was biding his time. But, when he returned to where he had parked the vehicle in a few minutes, Thapa found the vehicle was missing, and instead, to his utter surprise, saw the wreckage of his vehicle just a few meters away on NH55.

As per police sources, car lifting is not a new trade practiced by Puran Tamang and he has been involved in a number of criminal cases that includes a murder.

During the time of the incident, the lodge s employees informed some Japanese tourists were enjoying a break. Thy were taken aback by surprise and shouted as the accident occurred right next to where they were standing, but fortunately none of them sustained any injury.