LAHORE: Badami Bagh police have arrested an active three-member rickshaw and motorcycle theft gang, recovering stolen vehicles, cash, mobile phones and illegal weapons.
According to police, three motorcycles, a Chingchi rickshaw, cash, 10 mobile phones and illegal weapons were recovered from the possession of the arrested suspects.
Police said the suspects would tie the stolen motorcycle behind a Chingchi rickshaw and flee after committing a theft, in order to evade police. The suspects, who have prior records, used master keys to steal motorcycles.
The technique is notable for what it reveals about how such gangs adapt to enforcement. A motorcycle being ridden away shortly after a theft is a recognisable profile at a checkpoint and on camera. A load rickshaw carrying a secured motorcycle reads instead as ordinary commercial transport, of which there are thousands of examples on Lahore’s roads at any hour. The method also removes the need for the thief to start the stolen machine, which is the point at which most ignition-based security measures would otherwise be tested.
Master keys — filed or generically cut keys that operate the simple wafer locks fitted to many older motorcycles — remain the most common tool in motorcycle theft in Punjab, and are the reason police advisories consistently recommend a secondary physical lock.
According to SP City, the arrested suspects were committing offences in various areas of Lahore City, and during interrogation they also disclosed more than 20 incidents.
SHO Badami Bagh Iftikhar Alam, along with a police team, carried out the action and arrested the suspects.
The arrested suspects include Ali Raza, Tanveer and Naveed. Cases have been registered against the suspects and further investigation is under way.
Motorcycle theft is among the highest-volume property crimes recorded in Lahore, a direct consequence of the motorcycle being the primary mode of transport for lower- and middle-income households across the city. For an affected family, the loss is rarely trivial: the machine is frequently the means of earning a livelihood as well as of daily commuting.
The recovery of 10 mobile phones alongside the vehicles suggests activity beyond vehicle theft alone, and disclosures of this kind — more than 20 incidents, according to police — are the reason investigators pursue interrogation-stage linkage between an arrested group and unsolved case files across multiple police stations.
The recovery of illegal weapons adds a separate set of charges under the Punjab Arms Ordinance, which are ordinarily registered in addition to the theft cases.
Recovered vehicles in such cases are produced before the court and released to verified owners against registration documents. Punjab Police have increasingly relied on the vehicle verification systems maintained by the Excise and Taxation Department, alongside CCTV and Safe City camera coverage, to match recovered machines to reported thefts.
Further investigation into the network’s disposal chain — the point at which stolen motorcycles are broken for parts or re-registered — continues.
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