Kalpetta: The town is witnessing a mysterious phenomenon of disappearance and appearance of abandoned bikes at various locations. Local people said that such incidents had become a common occurrence during December last year. After this news appeared in media, few cases more were reported for some time. However, the strange occurrence has come back to haunt the residents.
According to locals, a bike was seen near Kattappana St Martha’s convent for over a week. Though the police were informed about it, no action has been taken. Last year also an ‘abandoned’ bike was noticed in the woods near the same spot and it vanished after a few days.
It is suspected that gangs of bike lifters keep the stolen vehicles for some time before handing them over to buyers, mainly in Tamil Nadu. Local people believe that such stolen bikes are used for illegal activities before being abandoned.
Numerous vehicles with Tamil Nadu registration numbers ply in the plantation area of Idukki district. Most of the numbers are apparently fake. There are around 2000 such bikes in the district; some of them were stolen and modified in Tamil Nadu, said the local people.
Such vehicles have good demand among the youth in Idukki as relatively new bikes are available at cheap prices. None of them have valid documents which help antisocial elements to use the bikes for smuggling ganja, hooch, and banned tobacco products.
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