KOCHI: In normal circumstances, it would have gone unnoticed as a routine traffic offence.
But when a Karnataka-registered sedan jumped the signal at Cheranalloor and sped past on Thursday, a police patrol team led by Ernakulam Town North Circle Inspector K.J. Peter, engaged in vehicle checking, smelt something fishy.
When they gave the car a chase and intercepted it, the driver got out of the vehicle and took to his heels. The cops chased him down, and their intuition proved correct. The 54-year-old driver P. Nazeer, a resident of Bengaluru and originally from Kozhikode, was an accused in a series of inter-State vehicle thefts, and quite unsurprisingly, the car he was driving was also a stolen one!
Though Nazeer claimed to be a businessman and demanded that he be released after being charged for traffic offence, police verification proved that the registration number was fake. He also feigned to know only Hindi but cracked under the interrogation by a police officer fluent in the language.
It emerged that he was also accused of stealing a brand new sedan from a showroom at Geethanjali Junction near Vyttila in February 2015.
The car parked in the showroom compound overnight for final checks was found missing at the time of delivery next morning.
CCTV footage from nearby buildings and toll plaza details had revealed that the car was taken to Bengaluru. Since then, the city police have been on the lookout for the thief with the support of the special squad of the Bengaluru City Police Commissioner for cracking vehicle thefts.
All the cars Nazeer had allegedly stolen were from showrooms. In fact, he took advantage of the the practice of keeping keys inside the vehicles parked on the showroom premises for final checks before delivery. He used to simply get into a car and drive out of the showroom without drawing the attention of the security or company staff.
He was accused of stealing cars in this fashion from Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai.
He was also accused of attempt to murder in a case when his move to steal a car from a showroom in Bengaluru was foiled by the security guard. He was also charged for attempted burglary from a Bengaluru jewellery three months ago.
The accused was produced before the court and remanded.
