TURA, May 14: In a case that could be indicative of a large-scale manipulation, East Garo Hills (EGH) District Transport Officer (DTO), Gene Kelly G Momin has been arrested by Assam police after huge anomalies were found in the registration of vehicles that were apparently either stolen or were tax defaulters.
Interestingly, immediately after information of the arrest of one of the touts involved in the case was received, a case of arson was registered at the office of the DTO in East Garo Hills, in which several important documents were apparently tried to be disposed off. While there is still unofficial version on the number of such vehicles that were passed off or were given fake documents, sources indicated that the number could into the hundreds.
As per Assam police reports, on specific inputs a Naka was placed before Agia police station on May 5 and one Suzuki Dzire vehicle was detained for search.
During the search by the police, five numbers of registration certificates of various vehicles were seized from the owner of the vehicle identified as one Golam Ali alias Soto, a resident of Kismatpur, Goalpara. As per the findings, all six original registration certificates were issued by the East Garo Hills DTO.
What turned the case was the fact that out of the six registration certificates, five were found to be made with false engine and chassis numbers. In fact, even in the vehicle of Golam Ali that was detained by the police (ML07 C 1786), the engine number showed a different owner while the chassis number was void on the Maruti Suzuki database.
Following the finding, police investigated all the registration certificates found in Ali’s car and it was found that four out of the five vehicle numbers came with fake engine and chassis numbers (as per the database of Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors).
A thorough investigation was carried out and it was found that the DTO had issued the registration certificates without checking any valid credentials of the engine or chassis number of these vehicles.
Further, as per police sources, immediately after a case was registered and Golam Ali arrested by Assam police vide case in Agia on May 5, a suspected case of arson was reported in the office of the DTO, apparently related to the paper trial in the case. Important documents of the case were apparently burnt.
As per Assam police, following sufficient evidence and details of monetary transactions between Ali and Momin, the DTO was arrested on Saturday.
As per the initial findings, Ali along with his associates would approach the DTO to register vehicles that had either been stolen, had tax failures or were dubiously auctioned as new vehicles. Many old vehicles were apparently provided with a new registration number – a clear violation of laws. Most of the vehicles that were illegally registered belonged to the state of Assam.
Following the crackdown by Assam police, many of the vehicles that had been dubiously registered are apparently being hidden by the owners for obvious reasons.
