Tamil Nadu gang drives off with 7 SUVs

It was a grand auto theft straight out of the Hollywood movie Gone in 60 Seconds starring Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie. The copycat thieves struck a Hyundai automobile parking yard at Manappakm, Chennai, and drove away with seven SUVs early on Wednesday morning after killing the lone guard.

The Chennai cops may have proved smarter than their celluloid counterparts as they recovered five cars within three hours of the heist. All the hijacked SUVs were Hyundai Cretas, which is a top-selling model. According to the police, early on Wednesday at around 4 am, a seven-member gang approached the yard of Hyundai Motors in which 63 vehicles were parked.

Manoharan, 54, was guarding the premises and when he heard noises of stones being pelted at the gate, he went to check, which is when the seven men barged in after attacking him. They escaped with seven SUVs. Later in the morning, a police patrol van found a few brand new vehicles parked on Gangai Amman Koil Street in Valasaravakkam. The suspects may have fled from there on seeing the cops.

Though there was no CCTV surveillance at the yard, which started operating only a week ago, the police is now browsing the footage from other cameras on the street to try and trace the suspects. The police noted that stickers with fake vehicle registration numbers had been stuck on the gleaming new vehicles. The auto thieves had come prepared with the stickers hoping to hijack the cars. They also seemed to know where the keys were kept.

“It looks like people familiar with the operations of the company are involved the theft,” sources said and the police is questioning people with such a background. A manhunt has been launched for the perpetrators even as efforts are on to trace the other two cars.

Hyundai officials thanked the police for their swift action. They explained that the company had taken possession of the yard recently in Manapakkam and that a security system is just being put in place.