Former national level judo player arrested for stealing cars

Representational Picture

On June 11, 2019, the Delhi Police arrested a former national-level judoka along with his accomplice for stealing cars from self-drive car rental company Zoomcar. According to the police, the accused booked cars from Zoomcar's offices in the capital by producing fake documents and disappeared after taking them for long drives to hill stations in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, the police said. Two other accused in the case, Somveer and Sumit, are still at large and a hunt is on to nab them.

"The accused, Sahil Shokeen (22), a resident Bahadurgarh in Haryana, and his accomplice Sachin (20), a resident of the capital's Rohini area, were arrested on Monday," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Madhur Verma.

"Shokeen was a national-level judo fighter whose career was cut short in 2014 when he fell down from a train and his leg came under the wheels while he was on his way to participate in the National Games. Sachin is a polytechnic student," Verma said.

"Acting on a tip-off, a police team headed by Sub Inspector Amit Kumar and Inspector Vinod Narang first arrested Shokeen from his residence in Bahadurgarh before nabbing Sachin from Delhi," Verma said, adding that a Mahindra XUV 500 which the duo hired from Zoomcar was recovered from their possession.

"During interrogation, the accused confessed that after hiring a car from Zoomcar, they would take out its GPS navigation system and throw it in a passing vehicle on the highway to mislead the police. The accused confessed to have stolen cars from Zoomcar on multiple occasions," the DCP said.

"They also admitted having stolen many other high-end vehicles such as Ford Endeavour, Mercedes, Tata Hexa, and other luxury cars. After stealing the cars, they would modify the vehicles before selling them to people involved in bootlegging alcohol from Haryana to Uttar Pradesh," Verma added.

A manager at Zoomcar had on May 17 filed a complaint against the accused after the company's staff failed to track the location of a Mahindra XUV 500 which they had rented to the accused a day before.

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