Lucknow, July 10 - Five youths from Chandigarh involved with an inter-state auto lifting racket were arrested after a brief shootout in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district, police said Friday.

'The five, who are in the 18-20 age group, were arrested Thursday night from a hideout in the Saklapuri town in Saharanpur,' police inspector Hukum Singh told IANS over the telephone.

He said police raided the hideout in Saharanpur, about 350 km from here, acting on a tip-off. 'The five present there started firing at us. We also retaliated and it was only after an hour that we managed to arrest them. Nearly a dozen motorbikes were recovered from their possession.'

The group has confessed they work for a Chandigarh-based auto lifting gang that also operates in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

'All the five youths come from middle-class families and have completed their studies till Class 12 in Chandigarh.'