2003 Valentine’s Day murder: MP court awards 7-year rigorous imprisonment to Tarun Jinaraj for impersonating friend while on run

Following the murder of his wife, Jinaraj allegedly took on the identity of Praveen Bhateley, his senior from college in Gwalior, who ran a judo institute for underprivileged children in Bhopal at the time.

According to the prosecution, Jinaraj came to Bhateley in March 2003 seeking a job. Between June and July 2003, Bhateley offered him work teaching spoken English to students at his institute. The prosecution argued that during this time, Jinaraj allegedly scanned all of Praveen’s documents, including mark sheets and identity cards, and prepared forged ID cards and educational certificates.

The police alleged that he obtained a passport using forged documents and used it to travel to the US while working for a tech company in Bengaluru. Additionally, Jinaraj married another woman from Pune in 2008 and they moved to live in Bengaluru. Bhateley later found out about Jinaraj’s criminal past when he read a newspaper and filed a First Information Report (FIR) at Bhopal’s T T Nagar police station.

Additional Public Prosecutor Vinod Dubey argued that the accused used these forged documents to deceive companies like Option One Mortgage Pune, iGate Noida, Teletech Gurgaon, Vertex Customer Management Gurgaon, Dell Bangalore, and Daksh E-Services Gurgaon, “leading these companies to hire him as their employee/officer at a higher salary due to his deception”.

Additional Sessions Judge (Bhopal) Swayam Prakash Dubey convicted Jinaraj under sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 467 (forgery of valuable security…), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code and fined him Rs 11,000.

“Therefore, based on the above factual investigation and analysis, the prosecution has successfully proven beyond reasonable doubt that the accused…forged valuable documents such as a passport, PAN card, driving license, Aadhaar card, etc., in the name of Praveen Bhatele to establish himself as Praveen,” the court said.

After he jumped interim bail in 2023, Jinaraj allegedly resided in Delhi under the identity of ‘Justin Joseph’. The trial for the Sajini murder case is still ongoing in Gujarat.