HYDERABAD:The suave thief who sped away with a Rs 4.5 lakh worth Harley Davidson bike on Tuesday, is suspected to have fled the state.
According to police sources, the con man might have crossed the border and proceeded to Mumbai, where he may try to sell the bike after changing the chassis number.
A youth, who introduced himself as Syed Taher, walked into the Harley Davidson showroom at Banjara Hills on the pretext of having a test-ride and disappeared with the high-end bike. The man hand furnished his mobile phone number, driving licence and office address before taking the super-bike for test ride. But all the proof produced by the conman turned out to be fake.
It is believed that the man had a thought-through plan to steal the bike. He stopped at a petrol bunk beside CM’s camp office at Begumpet and headed towards Karimnagar highway. The timing he selected to carry out his heist-plan, gives a glimpse of his preparedness. The trickster selected 2.30 pm, as the traffic will be relatively relaxed at that time.
Police said that the accused made a transaction at an ATM at Sadhashivpet town, located alongside Mumbai highway, which cements the doubt that he made his way out of Telangana with the bike. The metro city in Maharashtra has earlier recorded alleged cases of vehicle-lifters changing chassis number and selling them.
“We verified his image grabbed by CCTV, with that of known culprits. There was no match. We are investigating the case,” said Sri Rambabu, detective inspector with Banjara Hills Police.
The showrooms’s employees took one-and-half hour to approach Police for help. Meanwhile, they tried to trace the accused by hitting the roads in different directions.
Lack of Police’s eye gave Taher ample time to escape from city limits. “Had they informed us soon after the incident, we could have sent an alert to all police stations and traced him. The bike being a rare model on Hyderabad roads, tracing him would not have been a difficult task,’’ he added.
Investigators believe that the culprit could have proceeded to Mumbai and the local police are trying to contact their Mumbai counterparts.
Across the Border
The culprit appears to have crossed the State border and proceeded to Mumbai city, where he could change the chassis number of the Harley Davidson, and dispose it of as a second hand bike to gullible customers.