A man, who had fled with a rented car earlier this month, was finally traced and arrested by the Mysuru city police.
According to the police, the accused Nithin S. Puranik, 24, hired a car from a travel agency in Bengaluru on December 6, stating he had to bring back an ailing relative from K.R. Hospital. While hiring the car, he had falsely given his name as Arun Kumar.
After reaching Mysuru around 10 p.m. in the hired Innova car, he checked into a hotel and made the driver Manjunath also sleep in the room with him. But, in the middle of the night, the accused slipped out of the room with the car key and drove away the car parked in the hotel.
Along with the car, police said the accused had taken away driver Manjunath’s mobile phone, Drivers’ License, PAN card, Aadhaar card and two ATM cards. The driver woke up to find not only the client missing, but also the keys, the car and his belongings.
The Nazarbad police, which booked a case, traced Nithin, a resident of Jamkhandi in Bagalkot district, with the car worth Rs 10.7 lakh on Monday. He has confessed to the crime, said the police. Nithin was produced before the court, which remanded him to police custody.