KATHMANDU, AUGUST 4

As many as 51 persons were arrested on the charge of bike-lifting in the last fiscal 2020-21. Traffic police managed to retrieve a total of 418 motorcycles during the same period, thanks to special operation put in place by the law enforcement agency in recent times.

Traffic police held Dipendra Bhujel, 19, of Ramechhap, Bishesh Limbu, 19, of Taplejung and Bikal Thapa, 21, of Dhanusha with two stolen motorcycles from Bhaktapur and Kirtipur on Saturday. According to Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, they were found to be riding stolen bikes by replacing the genuine registration numbers with fake ones.

Senior Superintendent of Police Janak Bhattarai, MTPD in-charge, said plainclothes cops had fanned out across Kathmandu valley and neighbouring districts to collect intelligence about stolen bikes.

He warned that bike-lifting rackets had targeted hospital premises, party palaces, busy market areas and solitary places to steal two-wheelers.

The racketeers often use master key for the purpose.

These master keys are made at home or metal workshops by melting and moulding the iron as per their need. They approach parking lots and forcibly insert the master key into the navigation lock leading to damage of the locking system.

In some cases, they also snap the ignition wiring coming out of the handlebar area to start the two-wheelers.

SSP Bhattarai said the racketeers either sell the stolen bikes or use them for their own purpose after modifying and replacing their registration numbers. New, expensive and fancy bikes popular among the young generation are more susceptible to theft. 'Sometimes, the stolen bikes are disassembled and their parts are sold separately,' he informed.

Carelessness on the part of bikers is the main cause of the problem despite the fact that they are well-informed about the problem of motorcycle theft. SSP Bhattarai advised bike owners to park their two-wheelers in secure places with handles locked and added security system. Intelligent locking system having double lock option can make it difficult for racketeers to lift motorcycles.

Meanwhile, MTPD handed over 23 motorcycles and scooters retrieved from different places of the country to their respective owners yesterday upon verification of documents.

The bikes were stolen on various dates and recovered from the valley and surrounding areas.

'Prevention is better than cure. But there are always chances of retrieval of stolen property and the general perception that police do not take the search for missing bikes seriously is wrong,' he claimed.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 5 2021, of The Himalayan Times.