Cepsa Auto Team

LUCKNOW: As many as 417 two-wheelers and 90 four-wheelers were stolen from various police station areas of the city between January 1, 2011 and May 15, 2011.

And with freshers getting attracted towards this illegal industry, whose annual turnover exceeds Rs 30 crore, the key operators continue to flourish, while the best cops burn their midnight oil to gather criminal intelligence of freshers, which is certainly not an easy job.

Since January 1, police have busted over two dozen gangs comprising over four-dozen gang members. If police sources are to be believed, only around two-dozen of the members were earlier involved in auto-lifting, rest were freshers.

Senior police officials are of the view that besides strengthening the policing, another option is creation of a special anti-auto lifting cell with specially trained cops being recruited in the cell. However, the steps taken by the public as a matter of precaution for putting a curb on auto-lifting still remains the most reliable and effective methodology.

“Citizens should always ensure that the vehicles are parked only in stands, as it has been seen that auto-lifters generally focus on vehicles in front of malls, cinema halls and other prominent market places,” DIG DK Thakur said.

Keeping in view the past trends, two-wheeler owners can simply cut down on lifting of the vehicles by using wheel locks other than the main lock, Inspector Hasanganj Vinay Gautam said. “These two methods, once adopted religiously, would bring down the number of auto-lifting cases,” circle officer, Aliganj, Rajesh Srivastava said.

“Similarly, for four-wheelers, the best and easiest way of protection is to ensure that the vehicle is covered, whenever kept outside the house,” said circle officer, Gomtinagar, Anand Kulkarni. Looking into the psyche of an auto-lifter, uncovering the vehicle would take at least 40-50 seconds extra, even as they are considered experts in lifting the vehicles in few minutes said Kulkarni and added, “An auto-lifter would not risk wasting extra time for an operation.” Besides, the auto-lifter will remain unsure of the vehicle model, if it is kept covered.

Second most easy and effective method to stop auto-lifting is installing gear lock in the vehicles, said circle officer Mahanagar Arvind Kumar Yadav. The cost of installing gear lock ranges between Rs 1,500 to 2,500 he added.With hi-tech gadgets like global positioning system also available, the use of same would drastically check auto-lifting, Superintendent of Police (trans-gomti) Nitin Tiwari said and added, “Traders association have been asked to install CCTVs at prominent markets in the area to watch the movement of people on camera, which in turn could help in nabbing these auto-lifters.”