Chennai: In the garb of a prospective customer seeking to buy a second hand bike, an unknown person scooted off with a 19-year-old boy’s two-wheeler on Friday, following which the youth lodged a complaint at the Seven Wells police station.
Police said the youth Mohammed Afreen, resident of Seven Wells, bought a hi-end bike valued at Rs 4.5 lakh two years back.
Due to some financial crisis, Mohammed had registered details on popular web portal ‘OLX’ for selling the bike, on Thursday.“Mohammed had quoted the purchase price itself as the sale price also. Surprisingly, he received immediate response from a caller, who told him that he was interested in purchasing the bike, and after providing his address, asked if Mohammed could meet him at a particular spot where the deal could be finalised,” police said.
A place near Stanley hospital was fixed and Mohammed took his bike there to meet his customer.
At this point, the prospective customer who is also the accused, hired an auto to go to Stanley hospital. Getting into the auto, the accused deftly won the confidence of auto driver Shekar, and persuaded him to act like his uncle for a short while, for a payment of Rs 2,000.
The greedy driver also accepted the deal without a second thought. As it later turned out, the accused had enacted this drama just to get a free ride to the hospital. On reaching the place, the accused asked auto driver Shekar to wait inside the hospital till he returned.
“While Shekar innocently waited for his passenger to return, the accused reached the place where Mohammed was waiting for him. As negotiations began, he asked Mohammed for vehicle documents like licence and other certificates, and both went on a test drive to Mint,” said the police officer.
There, under pretext of checking the condition of the tyres, the accused asked Mohammed to hand him the bike. “As soon as he got on the bike, the accused pushed away Mohammed and fled the place with bike,” police sources added.
Coming to understand that he was cheated, Mohammed lodged a complaint with the Seven Wells police. Police are trying to retrieve CCTV footage from nearby sources, to fix the culprit.
