A Delhi car thief has been unmasked after using plastic surgery to evade investigating police officials.
To keep ahead of the law, Kunal who went by the alias of Tanuj, underwent plastic surgery in 2012 in order to continue with his car thieving caper.
He was allegedly planning to get another face before the Delhi Police finally caught him earlier his month.
Kunal (masked) enjoyed a lavish lifestyle with the money he earned from stealing vehicles
Kunal had been involved in more than 500 car thefts from Delhi and neighbouring states. Seemingly invisible he gave the Delhi Police sleepless nights until October 13, when he was arrested at Kalkaji.
Kunal’s interrogation led the police to his other two aides, Irshad and Mohd. Shadab. The duo was arrested recently in the city and 12 cars were recovered from their possession.
Kunal began his journey with petty thefts but soon earned the tag of Delhi’s ‘superchor’.
He told the police that in 1997, he started breaking into homes.
Then he fell into bad company and started stealing cars. Kunal enjoyed a lavish lifestyle with the money he earned from stealing high-end vehicles. He also became addicted to drugs.
Over the years, Kunal even formed his own gang who he trained up himself.
Declared a proclaimed offender, he underwent facial cosmetic surgery in 2012 and changed his name from Tanuj to Kunal.
However, soon after he was arrested and released on bail.
To keep ahead of the law, Kunal who went by the alias of Tanuj, underwent plastic surgery in 2012 in order to continue with his car thieving caper.
For the duration of the investigation Delhi Police had no clue about his twin identity.
The truth about the plastic surgery came to light when the police again arrested him again recently.
On October 13, the police got a tipoff that Kunal alias Tanuj would be visiting Kalkaji to steal a car.
A trap was laid opposite Eros Hotel on Lala Lajpat Rai Road, Nehru Place.
‘At around 11.40pm, an i20 car (bearing DL 3C BZ 2258) was coming from the Moolchand Hospital side.
The car was signaled to stop by a policeman and immediately the road was blocked with the help of barricades.
‘The driver stopped the car 50 metres away from the barricades and he started running. The police team chased him and caught him,’ a senior police official said.
The i20 was found to be stolen from Sector-31, Faridabad.
It was then that the police got to know that Kunal and Tanuj, a resident of Shalimar Garden, were one and the same person.
During interrogation, Kunal confessed that since February he had stolen more than 100 cars from Delhi-NCR.
He told the police that in the entire process of vehicle theft and its disposal, there were three tiers of operators.
Twelve of the cars recovered by police that had been stolen by the gang
First, the auto lifters, who would physically steal vehicles, then a set of middlemen who would tamper the engine and chassis number and procure forged documents on which these stolen vehicles were re-registered.
Finally, a network of car dealers spread across the country who would sell these vehicles as genuine ones.
Kunal is wanted in more than 62 different cases of auto lifting at different police stations of Delhi and other neighbouring states.
Meanwhile, the police have assured that they will soon recover other stolen cars.