Youth who stole cars only to return these later, arrested

Till date, he had stolen nine such vehicles, including Mitsubishi Pajero, Ford Endeavours, Toyota Innovas and Renault Duster and returned all to the vehicle owners.

"Unlike his taste, he had stolen a small car this time — a Maruti Alto from Zirakpur — and was arrested in Hisar. The vehicle had a temporary registration number. He was caught during a routine checking on the Tosham highway in Hisar and on questioning, failed to prove his ownership on the vehicle," Assistant Sub-Inspector Harish Bhardwaj said.

He added: "Rahul, a Hisar resident, was taken into custody and during interrogation, he spilled the beans. On verification, we found that he had stolen and returned all the vehicles. He was involved in nine cases of vehicle thefts registered in Chandigarh, Haryana and Punjab."

Recently, Rahul had stolen a Renault Duster from Hisar's Green Park area. "By posing as the new driver, he made the owner's domestic help to get him the car keys and wash the SUV. He then fled with the car. After about 10 days, he informed the owner that his car was parked at Fatehabad's bus station parking," Bhardwaj said.

According to the police, Rahul had stolen two Endeavours and an Innova from Chandigarh's Sector 22-C, another Innova from Rohtak, a Pajero from Gurgaon, another Endeavour from Kaithal, a Chevrolet Cruze and a Maruti Swift Dzire from Chandigarh and a Maruti Alto from Zirakpur.

"He (Rahul) did not steal cars with the purpose to sell the vehicle, but only to fulfill his lust of owning and driving a swanky car. He is a Class XII passout from a middle-class family and his parents are fed up of his stealing habit. In the past as well, he had driven stolen cars for 10-12 days and later abandoned the vehicles," said Hisar SP Satheesh Balan.

"Rahul first used to procure personal information about the car owner and then steal his vehicle by either being friendly with the domestic helps or posing as a car washer," he added.

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