Unearthing a scam in the sale of used cars, Punjab Police on Thursday said it has arrested three persons including a Mansa-based scrap-dealer for fraudulently selling scrapped Maruti Suzuki cars after tampering with their chassis numbers and getting them registered as legitimate vehicles, to customers  in Punjab and other states.

DIG Ropar Range, Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said that an authorized Maruti Suzuki Dealership namely Atelier automobiles located at Bahadurgarh in Patiala had sold at least 87 cars damaged due to flooding in the showroom premises to a scrap dealer for a mere Rs 85 lakhs. The cars were brand new but officially categorized as 'condemned', as they had been in a flooded showroom for sometime.

They were sold to a Mansa-based scrap dealer identified as Puneet Trading Company owned by Puneet Goyal on July 27, 2019. Goyal is absconding and police teams have launched a manhunt to arrest him.

Those arrested 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 (RTA agent) of Bathinda, besides the Police have booked the owner Puneet Goyal. 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.

Bhullar said that upon a detailed investigation of the subsequent paper trail it came out  that these 87 vehicles of whose chassis numbers were grinded and they 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, he added.

SSP Fatehgarh Sahib, Ravjot Kaur said that further investigations are on and the Police is trying to recover the remaining cars, which were sold to different people in Punjab and other states. FIR under relevant sections of the IPC has been lodged at Sirhind Police Station in Fatehgarh Sahib.