Mumbai: Routine check leads cops to fake number plate scam – Times of India

MUMBAI: A routine check by two traffic cops to crack down on two-wheeler riders without helmets has blown the lid off a racket of fake number plates recently. An FIR has been registered against the owner of a vehicle dealership agency for cheating clients with fake number plates.
The two constables, Deepak Pawar and Rohidas Mali (in pic), have been given a cash reward by the traffic police chief for their alertness.
On Thursday, Pawar and Mali were doing a routine check at Kandivli (west) when they spotted a rider without helmet trying to slip away and stopped him. When the constables checked the registration number of the scooter on their e-challan machine, it said that the scooter had a duplicate numberplate.
“The scooterist, Santosh Singh, said he was a recovery agent with a finance company. He said that the scooter of a popular two-wheeler manufacturer was recovered from a customer who had availed of a loan, but was unable to repay its instalments,” said senior inspector Suresh Rokde of Kandivli traffic division.
The constables looked up RTO records and found that the registration number had originally been allotted to a scooter of the same two-wheeler manufacturer, but with a different brand name. Also, the number was originally allotted to a senior citizen, Nitin Parekh, from the suburbs.
Parekh told the police about having received an e-challan in January for a traffic violation by a scooter which had the same number as his, but the brand was different.
“Here, it was clear that the scooter that had been stopped by the cops had a fake number plate,” Rokde said, adding that inquiries were made with the rider who had been caught. He led the police to the woman who had availed of the loan from his finance company for the scooter which got the fake number plate, said Rokde.
The woman told the police that she had purchased the two-wheeler from Suresh Chavan, owner of an automobile dealership in Charkop. She revealed that Chavan had provided her the registration number plate under the guise of completing paperwork with the RTO.
Rokde said that nearly a dozen two-wheeler owners had complained against Chavan for giving them duplicate number plates.