A traffic violation involving a scooter in Kasba on Thursday led police to its fake number plate and eventually eight persons, allegedly involved in making such number plates, were arrested.

A traffic sergeant intercepted a man riding the scooter bearing WB 05C 1317 number near DPS Junior Ruby Park. On verification, the number was found to be registered in the name of another person.

“A person named Ranjan Dutta had lodged a police complaint through email on October 10, saying that he had received some traffic violation messages against the same number,” said a senior police officer.

After realising that the scooter’s number plate was fake, the sergeant brought the scooter driver, Mangal Naskar, a resident of Sarat Garden Road in Dhakuria, to Kasba police station and later arrested him.

“During interrogation, Naskar said that he bought the two-wheeler from Pramendra Prasad Kesri in August. But within a few days, it developed snags. He met Kesri and told him that the two-wheeler was giving trouble,” the police officer said.

“Naskar said Kesri then handed him a scooter and asked him to use it for some time. He even said that the scooter had no owner and that since the number plate was fake, Naskar shouldn’t be worried about traffic violations.”

A police team reached Kesri’s house on BB Chatterjee Road in Kasba and found Naskar’s two-wheeler lying there.

Kesri, 44, was subsequently arrested for providing a scooter with a fake number plate to Naskar.

During questioning, Kesri divulged the identity of the persons who supplied him with the forged number plate for the scooter.

Based on the information, Bikram Shaw, 40, a Tiljala resident, was arrested from his shop on AJC Bose Road.

“Several fake number plates were recovered from the shop,” an officer said.

Shaw led the investigators to a house on McLeod Street, where a fake number plate-making machine and numerous such plates were found.

A group of people who were involved in making these plates could not produce any document that authorised them for such work.

Five persons — Sheikh Niyazuddin, 28, Mir Sahenul Akhtar, 48, Mir Faruque Ali, 55, Samir Ali, 22, and Salman Khan, 25 — were arrested. All of them are residents of Mullickbazar.