After recovering 3.2 kg gold from a well and Rs 1.35 crore cash of Dr Gaurav Bagga in Gondia, the city police are working to unravel the mystery surrounding the transfer of a significant sum of cash and gold, collectively valued at over Rs 12 crore. A top police official claimed that cash and gold collectively worth over Rs 12 crore were secretly shifted by the accused persons for which they were promised Rs six crore commission by on-line fraudster Sontu alias Ananth Navaratan Jain from Gondia. Khandelwal, in a statement to the police, disclosed that he had handed over three bags filled with cash and gold to a masked person under the instructions of Sontu Jain. Sontu, when questioned by the police, claimed that Bunty Kothari received the three bags from Khandelwal. However, Kothari has denied any involvement in the operation.

 

The police learned that Kothari, a cloth merchant from Gondia, was a close friend of Sontu Jain. The police have since detained Kothari for further questioning to determine his role in the movement of the assets and potentially reveal the final destination of the three bags, the official said. On Friday, the police conducted raids at seven locations and seized 3 kilograms of gold, that was found in a well, and Rs 1.35 crore in cash. The police carried out raids at five other locations in Gondia and one belonging to a bank manager in Bhandara but no suspicious items were found at these sites, he said. The investigation took a crucial turn when Sontu handed over his iPhone to the police on Monday after surrender. Although he had wiped the data from the device, the police adopted advanced technology and managed to recover some deleted information, including eight call recordings for 200 minutes in duration, the CP said. These call recordings shed light on the communication between Sontu, Axis Bank Gondia’s bank manager, Ankesh Khandelwal, and Dr Gaurav Bagga, a radiologist from Gondia. Sontu collaborated with Khandelwal and engaged Dr Bagga in a conspiracy. They devised a plan that involved opening three new lockers in Dr Gaurav Bagga’s name in the same branch and transferring substantial sums from the Jain family lockers to the newly established lockers of Dr Bagga. After successfully moving the gold and cash into Dr Bagga’s lockers, Khandelwal and Dr Bagga handed the valuables to a person before July 30. In a statement to the police, Khandelwal revealed that he had delivered 3 bags filled with gold and cash to a masked person on instructions of Sontu Jain. 

 

 

The police produced international fraudster Sontu Jain before the court after his five-days police custody ended on Saturday. After hearing plea of the police and taking into consideration new evidences gathered by the police, the court remanded Sontu Jain to police custody till October 27. Refuting the prayer of the prosecution, Adv Naidu, appearing for the accused, argued that, the sections as had been slapped against the accused persons were not at all in consonance with the facts and were not attracted, since, neither had the accused persons cheated or dishonestly induced any person to deliver any property or valuable security and as such, 420 of the IPC was not maintainable against the accused persons. Likewise, in order to invoke the provisions of 409, the prosecution has to make out a case that the accused persons had been entrusted with the property or with any dominion over the property in his capacity as a public servant and had committed criminal breach of trust in respect of that property. As such, it was argued that, neither did the property belong to the police authorities and it is not the case that the doctor couple and the manager had cheated Sontu Jain. At the most, the Manager can be slapped with section 188 of the IPC for deliberate disobedience of the order so issued by the police officer to freeze the bank accounts and lockers of Sontu Jain and the said offence was a bailable offence. While the prosecution demanded police custody for interrogation of the accused. After hearing both sides, Judge G N Bagrodia remanded Dr Bagga and Khandelwal to police custody till October 27.