KATHMANDU: The Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Teku today has made public three persons arrested on the charge of scooter theft in Kathmandu on Wednesday.

The arrested have been identified as Roshan Joshi (20) of Maruhiti in KMC-19, Dipak Lama (18) of Dhulikhel-5 in Kavrepalanchok and Sushan Ale Magar (18) of Sunkoshi Rural Municipality-3 in Sindhuli, both the latter residing in Dallu area of Swoyambhu.

Acting on a tip-off, a team deployed from Metropolitan Crime Division to control theft, nabbed the trio along with a scooter from the premises of Pachali temple, at 5:30 pm yesterday, according to police.

A blue scooter (Ga 5 Pa 1917) owned by one Puja Shrestha was stolen from Basantapur area, at around 9:00 pm on Wednesday.

Preliminary investigation shows that the alleged bike lifters had been using duplicate keys to steal the scooters from various parking lots in Kathmandu, said police.

Police also confiscated three Dio brand scooters — Ba 53 Pa 3391 (brown) with engine no. JF39E0070556 and chassis no. ME4JF391JC8070514, Ga 5 Pa 1917 (blue) with engine no. JF99E6152202 and chassis no. ME4FF994H98075129, and Ba 53 Pa 3625 (brown) with engine no. JF39E0071389 and chassis no. ME4JF391JC8071109 — all with vehicle registration certificates.

MPCD has launched further investigation as the bike lifters could have been involved in many bike theft cases.