In the first week of August, Hyderabad police had busted three bike stealing gangs operating under the control of Akbar Khan, who has political links.
They had arrested 16 members of the three gangs, but he has remained elusive even after three weeks despite police managing to arrest his brother Mohammmed Azghar Khan, 36, a realtor from Nizamabad. During the investigation, Azghar confessed that he and his brother had been procuring stolen bikes and loan defaulted bikes from Hyderabad and selling them.
Police have not yet found details of any criminal history pertaining to Azghar or Akbar. “We know that Akbar is locally known as an affiliate of a political party and the investigation details indicate that he has been operating the bike theft gangs in Hyderabad for the past nine months. He has been taking shelter in another state with the help of relatives in Nizamabad,” a police officer, who has been part of the investigation team, told TOI.
The investigators found out that Akbar primarily used one particular motor vehicle parcel service in Hyderabad to transport bikes from the city to Nizamabad. However, over 70 stolen and finance defaulted bikes worth over Rs 1 crore have been sent through another parcel service company office in Begum Bazar by Akbar’s gang to Nizamabad.
Deputy commissioner of police (DCP), North Zone, Kalmeshwar Shingenwar, who supervised the special teams that have busted the gang, told TOI: “Akbar is currently accused in over 30 bike theft cases and we will arrest him soon.”