Two boys were arrested in connection with the theft of five two-wheelers in the city on Saturday.
Police said that a group of Plus One students of different schools used to enjoy riding motorcycles. Affluent parents of one of the students had sold the motorcycle of their son to prevent him from riding it. However, the boy could not control his urge for bike riding. He and his friend, the son of a driver, started stealing motorcycles kept in the parking lots in the city. “They felt that they will not be respected by their friends if they were without motorcycles,” Anna Nagar Inspector of Police B. Murugadossan said.
“In two cases, the owners of the motorcycles had left the keys on the vehicles that made their job easier,” he added. In the remaining three cases, the boys had used duplicate keys to steal the motorcycles.
They used to ride the stolen vehicles till the petrol is exhausted. After they run out of fuel, they used to leave the two-wheelers in one of the crowded parking lots. “Since the bikes were left among scores of other vehicles, it never attracted attention,” the Inspector said.
The boys who had taken their parents and bike owners for a ride for nearly a month, however, ran out of luck when the owner of one of the stolen vehicles saw them attempting to erase the registration number of his bike in order to avoid being caught on Saturday.
“The boys had stolen the bike playfully. But when they started thinking in a criminal way, they were caught,” the Inspector said. They were produced before the Juvenile Justice Board that granted them bail.