ACCUSED TO BE BROUGHT BACK FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

Chandigarh, : In a major breakthrough in the Jalandhar priest’s missing money case, the special investigation team of the Punjab Police has been able to track down the two absconding ASIs, Joginder Singh and Rajpreet Singh, to Kochi, where they were arrested by the local police on Tuesday. 

Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson of the Punjab Police said that the absconding ASI’s were tracked down to a private hotel in Kochi, Hotel Casa Linda, Fort Kochi, from where they were nabbed by the local police after specific information provided by the SIT. The duo had checked into the hotel a day earlier and had hired a single room for themselves. They were picked up by the police around 4:30 PM.

According to DGP Punjab Police, Dinkar Gupta, who immediately tweeted information about the suspects’ arrest, SIT officers, led by IGP, Crime and Investigations, Praveen K. Sinha, had left for Kochi to bring back the suspects to Punjab for further investigations. A FIR against the ASIs and a police informer, Surinder Singh, who has been since arrested, was registered by the SIT on April 12 u/s 392, 406, 34, 120-B IPC read with Sec 13(1)(a), 13(2) of PC Act at PS Punjab State Crime, SAS Nagar.

The cops and the informer face allegations of misappropriating Rs 6.65 crore, allegedly seized during a raid by the Khanna police at the house Father Anthony Maddasery in Jalandhar on March 29.

The spokesperson said that preliminary information received from Kochi police had revealed that the duo had checked into the hotel at about 4 PM on Monday and had taken up the single room after submitting Joginder Singh’s license as their proof of identity.