GUWAHATI, Aug 24 � With identical modus operandi and common target areas, vehicle lifters in Assam continue to enjoy safe passage leaving the common man and the law-enforcing agencies guessing all the time.
Tall and recurring claims of the law-enforcing circle of having busted inter-state car theft rackets fall flat if the latest graph of car theft instances is referred to.
Guwahati, which has emerged as the hot-bed for the wrong doers, have alone recorded 966 vehicle theft cases in 2010. Although police managed to arrest 159 persons during the period, there had been just 107 recoveries.
The penetration in the capital city could be gauged by the fact that a total of 2130 vehicle theft cases were reported in the State in 2010, of which 966 were reported in Guwahati. The theft cases in year 2005 stood at 534 compared to the State-wide figure of 945.
In the current year till April, already 306 vehicle theft cases have been reported with just 25 recoveries. Over 500 cases have been reported in rest of the State during the first four months of the calendar year.
�At present, there are 2803 pending cases in the State, of which 1637 are in Guwahati," records available with Assam Police stated.
A senior Assam Police official while conceding that vehicle theft cases have emerged as a pain in the neck of the department, went on to state that the movement of the car theft rackets are being consistently monitored, as a result of which many arrests were made.
