After Giriraj, Sadhu: Whose money is it, Part II, in Patna

Neither Giriraj nor Sadhu alias Anirudh Prasad, who is a former RJD MP and Lalu Prasad’s estranged brother-in-law, had specified the value of their stolen goods. Sadhu had only said “some cash and jewellery were stolen” from his Patna home on June 12.

With the cash out of the bag, Giriraj said all the recovered goods belonged to his Nagpur-based businessman cousin Rakesh Kumar Singh. Sadhu has thrust at least some of the recoveries on relatives.

“For reasons of safety, some of my relatives kept some of their stuff at my home,” he said, adding that was why he did not know the details of what was stolen.

However, the money and jewellery recovered from the three alleged thieves arrested on Sunday — Kundan Kumar Sah, Vikas Kumar and Santosh Kumar, all Patna-based — may not be all that was taken from Sadhu’s house.

The men have told the police they had spent about half the stolen cash on the purchase of land in rural Patna and Bhojpur, a bike, three laptops and a mobile phone each.

The police said the three claimed to have taken Rs 80 lakh in cash and gold jewellery weighing no less than 2 kg.

Later, they had reportedly hired a rickshaw and roamed around Patna with the stash packed in a towel bundle, for fear of police raiding their known locations.

After three hours, the bo-oty was shared — Rs 25 lakh went to Kundan, Rs 27 lakh to Vikas and Rs 28 lakh to Santosh.  On July 20, what police claimed to have found on them was Rs 39.14 lakh, land papers showing purchases of Rs 18.41 lakh, Nepalese currency and gold jewellery, some of which was studded with diamonds.

The police say they are not entirely convinced by Sadhu’s explanation for the goods. SSP Manu Maharaj said: “We are writing to the Income-Tax Department to investigate Sadhu’s case as well. Our job was to recover the stolen goods, which we did successfully.”

Incidentally, the three alleged thieves, claimed to have given away some of the booty in charity. A gold chain was reportedly gifted to a tea vendor, Rs 50,000 was given to a juice-seller, and a rickshaw was bo-ught for an unemployed youth.

However, it was the towel allegedly used by the thieves that helped crack the case. Police dogs followed the scent to the point where the alleged thieves hired the rickshaw. Police found this rickshaw puller a month later. He said he had been generously tipped by the “thieves” — Rs 2,000.

With the help of the rickshaw puller, police first traced Kundan Kumar Shah to his Digha house and recovered some cash and jewellery, and later, Santosh to his Alamganj house. Vikas kept changing homes but was eventually arrested from his wife’s home at Koelwar. In Giriraj’s case, the trail of money left behind by the alleged thief when stopped by traffic officials, had guided investigators.

Police have asked Sadhu to produce documents to claim the stolen goods. The district police have been questioning two people from Patna who reportedly purchased land near Nagpur from Giriraj’s cousin Rakesh. Singh had claimed that the cash was given by the two for the Nagpur purchase.