DIMAPUR, Sept 7 - Nagaland police arrested a gang of five persons after they made an attempt to sell a stolen car online. Police recovered two stolen cars from the possession of the accused.
In a press release, the Kohima Senior Superintendent of Police said that the arrest and recovery was a result of an orchestrated operation conducted by personnel of North Police Station, Kohima.
As per the release, the gang tried to sell a stolen car through a social media group. Based on the information, police decoys posing as prospective buyers were deployed to make contact with the sellers. After gaining the trust of the sellers over a period of several days, the decoys made a deal to purchase the car. The sellers were asked to bring the vehicle to Piphema to finalise the deal where they were arrested on September 5.
Three persons arrived in a black Santro Zing (NL-07-3295) to meet the decoy buyers at Piphema. �After making sure that it was safe, the trio made a call and two other gang members arrived at the spot with the stolen vehicle � a Maruti Swift Dzire (silver colour),� the release added. Police officers disguised as the prospective buyers took the Swift Dzire for test drive with one of the gang members in tow, who was overpowered and arrested. The other four were also surrounded and arrested soon after, the release said.
It was later ascertained that the Maruti Swift Dzire was registered as stolen at Hatigaon Police Station, Guwahati in 2015 with its original registration number as AS 01GC 0634. The registration number of the black Santro Zing was also found to have been allotted to another vehicle � a Hyundai Getz, the release stated.
The five arrested were identified as Kitolu Achumi (20), Hotokhu Assumi (27), Bokugha Zhimo (21), Anam Ali (23) and Thomas Singh (23), all residents of Dimapur. Ali hails from Hojai in Assam while Thomas is from Imphal in Manipur.
