Single registration certificate being used by more than one vehicle

Prashant Acharya, EOI, Siliguri,5 Jul 2014: An interesting secret has come to the fore after the recent arrest of five men accused of stealing the vehicle of a Sikkim-based Nepali daily, and it is how two or more vehicles run using the same registration paper.

During their investigations, the Sikkim police learned the vehicle theft racket used to run in a very technical manner and easily fooled the traffic police. The thieves first used to conduct a recce and familiarise themselves about vehicle owners and where they parked their vehicles. Some of them were experts in making duplicate keys, forging number plates and painting vehicles with different colours within two to three hours.

The cracking of the Bolero vehicle theft case has shown that after they stole a vehicle, the thieves used to destroy its papers and replace them with the original papers of a vehicle stolen from another state. They then used to make the number plate accordingly and scout for likely buyers in remote village areas where it would be difficult to trace the stolen vehicles.

The stolen Bolero vehicle of the media house was registered in Sikkim, and its license plate had been replaced by a West Bengal taxi number, WB 76- 9080. The Panjipara police have seized the Bengal number papers and investigation are on to ascertain whether they are fake or of another vehicle.

As per the registration certificate, the vehicle is registered in the name of Tapan Sadhukhan, a resident of QTR No. PJ 21, Sevoke Military Station in Salugara. The vehicle was registered on February 21, 2013 in Darjeeling.

There are traffic police who just check a vehicle’s papers and its driver’s license and rarely take the pain to crosscheck with the make, the chassis and engine number of the vehicle. They must have surely woken up following the revelation.