CHANDIGARH: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh announced on Wednesday that the murder case of the relatives of cricketer Suresh Raina in Pathankot has been solved by state police with the arrest of three members of an interstate gang of robbers criminals.
The attack on Raina’s relatives took place on the night of 19 August in the village of Tharyal, under the Shahpurkandi Police Station, in the Pathankot district.
DGP Dinkar Gupta said 11 other defendants have yet to be arrested in the case. Raina’s uncle, Ashok Kumar, a contractor by trade, was killed instantly while her son Kaushal succumbed to injuries on August 31 and her wife Asha Rani is still in hospital in critical condition.
Two other wounded in the attack were later discharged from the hospital. Punjab’s chief minister had ordered the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the IG Amritsar border rank after the incident.
It was on Tuesday that the SIT received information that three suspects, who were seen on the defense highway the morning after the August 20 incident, were staying in a poor neighborhood near the Pathankot train station. The SIT carried out a raid and all three were captured. The defendants had been identified as Sawan, alias Matching, Muhobbat and Shahrukh Khan, all residents of the Chirawa and Pilani slums in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. The police team had recovered a gold ring with AK, a women’s ring, a women’s gold chain and 1,530 rupees, along with two wooden sticks from the arrested defendant.
The investigation team (SIT) under the IG Amritsar border rank, with SSP Pathankot, SP Investigation and DSP Dhar Kalan as its members, to investigate the case. The SIT during the investigation had questioned more than 100 suspects in the FIR registered for murder and in other sections of the IPC on 20 August.
Modus operandi
The DGP said that according to the initial investigation, the defendants were operating as a gang together with others and had previously committed several such crimes in Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and various parts of Punjab. They used to travel to crime sites in groups of 2-3 following natural landmarks such as canals, railway lines, and high-voltage power lines.
The DGP said that Sawan, originally a native of Uttar Pradesh, had told SIT that on August 12, they had moved as a group from Chirawa and Pilani in a car (PB 02 G 9025) owned by a Nausau who also lives in Chirawa’s slums. Nausau had accompanied the trio, along with Rashid, Rehan, Jabrana, Waphila, Tawajjal Bibi, and an unknown person.
They reached Jagraon in the Ludhiana district, where they were joined by three others: Reenda, Golu and Sajan. They bought an aari (hand saw), two pliers and a screwdriver from a hardware store and some undergarments from a clothing store in Ludhiana. They left for Pathankot after committing a robbery in Jagraon on the night of August 14.
After they reached Pathankot, a Sanju, who knew the area well, also joined them and the gang conducted a reconnaissance of the area.
Finally, on August 19 at night around 7-8 pm they moved in groups of 2-3 people according to their modus operandi and arrived at a designated place in the open field where Rashid, Nausau and Sanju alias Chajju went to bring wooden sticks that they cut. from the Safeda tree (Eucalyptus).
The defendants have said that during the reconnaissance they had already identified a formwork workshop where the bamboo ladders were tied with chains. The first two houses where they placed the stairs turned out to be a downturn and an empty house while the third was Ashok Kumar’s. Five of the defendants entered the house through the stairs on the side of the roof, where they saw three people lying on the mats. The suspects beat them on the head before moving into the home, where they attacked two others before escaping with cash and gold ornaments, DGP said.
He added that later the defendants crossed the high-voltage electrical cables through the open field to reach the channel where they separated into groups to get to the train station. After distributing the cash and jewelry among them, they dispersed from the area.
.
