Kundapur: Bike theft in broad daylight - CCTV provides vital clue

Silvester D'Souza / Vinay Pais
Daijiworld Media Network - Kundapur

Kundapur, Mar 15: In probably the first case of its kind, the Kundapur police were able to get a vital clue to vehicle thieves as their act was captured on a CCTV camera located near Shastri Circle here.

On Monday March 11, Jagannath Kharvi, a resident of Fish Market road here parked his Honda Activa scooter (KA 20 EB 0229) near Shastri Circle at around 8.25 am and gone to check the local body election results at a college nearby.

He had kept Rs 80,000 in the compartment of the scooter. Kharvi, a wholesale fish dealer, had come directly to Shastri Circle and parked his scooter at the road leading to the college, from the fishing jetty. As there was no fish catch that day, the cash meant for the trade was kept in the scooter box by Kharvi, it is said. The two-wheeler and the cash went missing within 30 minutes which he took to come back to the spot. The scooter was approximately worth Rs 40,000.

Kundapur police registered a case in this regard and began investigations. When they examined the CCTV camera at Shastri Circle, it came to light that that the scooter had been taken away by two unknown persons. Their faces and clothes were cleared captured and a hunt for them is on.

The camera shows that the two thieves came at around 8.31 am in another scooter from the direction of Hotel Vaishali, and directly reached the spot where Jagannath had parked his vehicle. After waiting for two minutes, the pillion rider wearing a yellow T-shirt used a key to lift the seat of Jagannath Kharvi’s scooter, and examine the contents. Then he used the same key to start the scooter and drove away on the main road towards Koteshwar. The other person, who was wearing a white T-shirt, drove his two-wheeler on the college road. At the time the incident occurred, there was good public movement, and traffic police were present.

It is clear that those who knew about Jagannath and were aware of his movements are behind this theft. The way the theft was conducted makes it clear that the theft was pre-planned. The thieves perhaps were not aware about the presence of closed circuit cameras at the spot. The fact that the registration number of the vehicle used by the thieves and the identities of thieves are clearly visible in the cameras, will make it easy for the police to nab them, it is surmised.