LAHORE, Aug 4: The police investigation wing claimed on Wednesday to have busted a 12-man gang of car jackers and seized 27 vehicles from them.

Speaking at a press conference at the investigation police headquarters, police wing chief Chaudhry Shafqaat termed the seizure a big recovery.

He said he had assigned the anti car-lifting squad to go after car-snatchers instead of bothering the public by checking their cars during patrol. One patrol party, he said, held a man, Abdur Rasheed, alias Fauji, when he was busy snatching a car, who, later, turned out to be the ring leader of the gang.

The ring leader was quizzed and on his identification 11 more accomplices were arrested in raids conducted on various localities of the city, he said. His accomplices included women used to drive a snatched car out of Lahore or province, he added.

Besides the ring leader, he identified the gang members as Amir Iqbal, Shahnaz, Saima alias Babra, Shakeela alias Shabana, Kashif alias Jungli, Akhtar Ali, Muhammad Arif, Waheed Hasan, Ghulam Nabi, Muhammad Sarwar and Nayyar Kamran.

Saying that the gang members had confessed to taking away 35 cars, the police chief said that over a dozen registered cases against the accused had been traced. Later, Mr Shafqaat distributed keys of the seized cars among their owners. Further investigation is under way.