MTech grad engineers car thefts, held

Tribune News Service

Mohali, September 23

The police today claimed to have busted an interstate gang of vehicle lifters and solved 11 cases of theft with the arrest of its two members, including a computer engineer.

The suspects, identified as Akil Ahmed, a native of Palwal in Haryana and currently living at DLF Valley in Panchkula, and Sheikh Ahmed, a resident of Amravati in Maharashtra, were arrested near the Gazipur road on Thursday. Six cars stolen from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi this year have been recovered from them.

Ex-employee of Gurugram firm, Wife a doc

• The kingpin of the gang, Akil Ahmed, who lives at DLF Valley in Panchkula, is married to a doctor (MD) serving in a hospital in the tricity.
• He worked as head of a technical unit at a telecom company in Gurugram from 2004-2012. In December last year, he formed a gang of vehicle lifters.

In the preliminary investigation, it came to light that they used to provide vehicles to gangsters and criminals, the police said. SSP Vivek S Soni said, “During an initial interrogation of the suspects, it has come to light that this gang was involved in stealing a particular brand of cars. The gang has stolen 11 cars - eight from Punjab, two from Haryana and one from Delhi this year."

One of the cars was stolen from Zirakpur and a case under Section 379-B of the IPC was registered at the Zirakpur police station on February 12.

Akil Ahmed, who is married to a doctor (MD) serving in a hospital in the tricity, is the kingpin of the gang. He has done MTech (computer science) from the AFSET, a college in Faridabad.

He worked as the head of a technical unit at a telecom company in Gurugram from 2004-2012. In the year 2012, he was allegedly found selling VIP numbers at high rates. Later, he allegedly got involved in illegal mining at Bharatpur in Rajasthan, along with his gang members, and remained active till 2016. Thereafter, he ventured into the automobile sale-purchase business.

In December last year, Akil started criminal activities to make easy money and formed a gang of vehicle lifters. The gang operated in the NCR and Punjab as some of his gang members were earlier involved in heinous crimes in the state.

The police said being a computer engineer, he took only 10 to 15 minutes to open the lock of a car. He was an expert in unlocking vehicles, the police added.

Zirakpur DSP Bikramjit Brar, who cracked the case, said, "Sheikh Ahmed is into the business of automobile sale and purchase for the past 10 years. He and one of the absconding suspects, Sonu of Hisar, used to buy vehicles from Akil and sell these off. Efforts are being made to arrest Sonu and recover more stolen vehicles."

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