Organised gangs are doing a brisk business in stolen and snatched motorbikes with spurious documents in the city taking advantage of a rising demand for motorcycles among the youth.
The rackets are selling motorcycles at half of their market prices through different Internet-based sales centres, including Cell Bazaar, said Montasir Rahman, Detective Branch assistant commissioner of vehicle theft prevention team.
On an average, seven to eight motorcycles are stolen and snatched in the capital every day, said the police.
The rackets sell the stolen, snatched and smuggled motorbikes all over the country by making fake registration papers in collusion with agents allegedly linked to a section of employees of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, said the official.
They also buy Indian motorcycles smuggled through different border areas and sell them to customers, especially youths, in Dhaka city.
There are a total of 9,49,047 registered motorcycles in Bangladesh. Of them, 1,07,962 took registration from the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority in 2011. In 2010, the number of motorcycles registered was 88,499, in 2010 it was 84,142 and in 2004 the number was 24,941, said BRTA sources.
On August 15, the DB police arrested four people, including their leader Toufiqul Islam Ronti, and seized six stolen motorbikes from them.
During interrogation, Ronti admitted to trading in stolen bikes by preparing fake papers with the help of agents who, he claimed, had links to a section of employees of BRTA.
Ronti, leader of a racket of 25, said they had been involved in snatching, smuggling and trading in motorbikes for long, and they had a group of 25 members.
They have a ring leader in Comilla, who smuggles motorbikes from India and send them to Dhaka by SA Paribahan and Sundarban courier service, he said.
Sometimes the members of the gang drive the smuggled motorbikes to Dhaka.
In Dhaka city the racket is doing the business mainly in the old Airport area.
He named some of his accomplices as Ishan, Shanbir, Sunny, Motaleb, Evan, Jony, Karim, Sumon, Shuvo and Irfan who mainly works as sales persons of the group.
The racket with the help of their agents in BRTA makes forged papers which are not recorded in the register of the authority.
They also collect papers of stolen motorbikes and use them after changing owners’ names by legal procedure through the BRTA and use the papers for motorbikes of the same models though the engine and chassis numbers remain a mismatch.
Sometimes they duplicate papers of a registered motorbike which is running in another part of the country, through their agents in BRTA, and use the papers for a smuggled motorbike of the same model after tampering with its engine and chassis numbers.
The police on duty remain too busy controlling traffic to thoroughly check papers or engines and chassis numbers of motorbikes, said Montasir Rahman.
Grameen Phone’s corporate communications head Syed Tahmeed Azizul Haq told New Age, ‘Cell Bazaar is a public domain which everybody can use for buying and selling of commodities. We do not have the mechanism to verify everything.’
‘But,’ he said, ‘I would request the buyers to verify from the authorities concerned before purchase.
The BRTA licence department deputy director Sitangshu Sekhor said their employees were in no way involved in faking registration papers, saying that the smugglers make such papers themselves.
The fake papers do not have the security elements which are used in the original registration papers, he said.
DB’s additional deputy commissioner Sahidullah told New Age that they were continuing drives to bust the rackets involved in the business of stolen motorcycles.
Courtesy of New Age
