Four automakers to recall over 11,000 vehicles for faulty components
Hyundai Motor, Mercedes-Benz Korea, and two other carmakers will recall over 11,000 vehicles due to faulty components, the transport ministry here said on Thursday.
With the arrest of three persons, including a Mansa-based scrap-dealer, for fraudulently selling scrapped Maruti Suzuki cars, the Punjab Police claimed to have unearthed a scam.
The accused sold the vehicles to customers in Punjab and other states after getting them registered as legitimate vehicles after tampering with the chassis numbers.
Giving this information on Thursday, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Ropar Range Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said an authorised Maruti Suzuki dealership, Atelier Automobiles, based at Bahadurgarh in Patiala had sold at least 87 cars damaged due to flooding in the showroom to a scrap dealer for just Rs 85 lakh.
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The cars were brand new, but officially categorised as ‘condemned’ as they had been in a flooded showroom for some time. They were sold to a Mansa-based scrap dealer identified as M/S Puneet Trading Company owned by Puneet Goyal on 27 July, 2019.
Bhullar said upon a detailed investigation of the subsequent paper trail, it came out that these 87 vehicles the chassis numbers of which were grinded and were earmarked for being scrapped by the agency have been fraudulently registered as legitimate vehicles in connivance with various RTA offices of Punjab and other states. The role of officials of various RTA offices is also being investigated.
Senior Superintendent of Police Fatehgarh Sahib Ravjot Kaur said further investigations are on and the police are trying to recover the remaining cars sold to different people in Punjab and other states.
As Puneet Goyal is absconding police teams have launched a manhunt to arrest him. Those arrested so far have been identified as Rajpal Singh (father of Puneet Goyal), Jaspreet Singh alias Rinku (mastermind and car dealer), and both residents of Mansa and Naveen Kumar (an agent at Regional Transport Authority (RTA) Bathinda.
The police have also recovered 40 cars including eight Ciaz, two Swift, eight Swift Dzire, four Baleno, three Brezza, 10 Alto K10, two Celerio, and one each Ertiga, S-Cross, and Ignis.
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