Dhanbad judge death: CBI takes over FIRs on theft of mobile phones, autorickshaw

The CBI has taken over two more FIRs from the Jharkhand Police to look into the alleged conspiracy behind the death of Dhanbad Judge Uttam Anand who was mowed down by a three-wheeler while on a morning jog on July 28, officials said on Wednesday.

One FIR relates to an alleged theft of three mobile phones from the home of one Purnendu Vishwakarma while the other is for the theft of a three-wheeler of Sugnu Devi which was allegedly involved in the incident.

Officials said the theft of the autorickshaw took place days before the incident but was reported to the police only on July 29.

In her complaint, the autorickshaw owner, Sugni Devi, said the vehicle was stolen on the night of July 17 from outside her residence. She claimed that she had tried to trace it on her own but failed hence the delay in reporting the theft. The owner of the three mobile phones, Purnenedu Vishwakarma, said the devices were stolen on the night of July 28 from his residence while he was asleep. He claimed that he was preoccupied and since mobiles were not very costly he reported the matter on August 13, officials said.

According to Vishwakarma, some people posing to police personnel had visited him on August 10 and told him that the mobile phones were stolen by one Rahul Kumar Verma. It was on this basis that he named Verma in the FIR, they said.

Officials said the CBI wants to look into the claims made by the complainants which is why the FIRs were taken over from the Jharkhand Police. These cases were reported as isolated incidents by the state police. Going by the procedure, the agency has taken over these FIRs as its own cases. The CBI conducted narco-analysis on two accused, autorickshaw driver Lakhan Verma and his accomplice Rahul Verma, who was named as accused in mobile theft case too, nearly 15 days after the incident involving the judge.

The agency has also increased the reward amount for information about the crime to Rs 10 lakh.

The 49-year-old judge was allegedly mowed down by a heavy autorickshaw in Dhanbad while he was on a jog on the morning of July 28.

CCTV footage showed that Uttam Anand was jogging on one side of a fairly wide road at Randhir Verma Chowk when the vehicle veered towards the judge, hit him from behind and fled.

The CBI has recreated the accident scene, while experts of the Central Forensic Scientific Laboratory have collected evidence from the spot.

After being handed over the case by the Jharkhand government, the CBI dispatched a 20-member team under its ace investigator V K Shukla, recently awarded among best investigators by the Union Home Ministry, to investigate the matter.

The Jharkhand High Court and the Supreme Court have also kept an eye on the case.

The Jharkhand High Court bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to initiate a probe at the earliest. The court had also directed the government to hand over all the documents of the case to the CBI.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)