The police said Sanjay Kumar had hired an Indica car from a private taxi stand in Kullu Tuesday. After reaching Manimajra here, Sanjay manhandled the driver Ravi Kumar and sped away with the car after throwing him out of the vehicle. Ravi then informed car owner Anuj Sharma who was in Kullu.

“I had fitted GPS in my car and started tracing the vehicle through a special software installed in my laptop. The accused first took the vehicle towards Patiala town (in Punjab), and then returned to Chandigarh. He moved the car in various parts of Chandigarh,” Anuj said here Thursday.

“I reached Chandigarh while tracing the location of my car and finally reached the market of Sector 37. On reaching there we informed the police control room and recovered the car,” he added.

Sanjay Kumar had changed the number plate of the vehicle and pasted black film on the window panes. “The car was registered in Himachal Pradesh but Sanjay had placed number plates with Haryana registration number. Earlier too Sanjay was caught in a case of vehicle theft and he was out on bail,” said a police official.

He added: “A few years back, Sanjay had also worked as taxi driver in Chandigarh so he was well aware of the city roads.”