Court sends accused to five-day police remand

AMBALA: The district police on Monday presented accused Sandeep Kakkar alias Tinku, a resident of Chota Bazaar, Ambala City, in the court in connection with the murder of jeweller Sunil Jain.

The court ordered five-day police custody of the accused for further investigation.

On November 23 at 7.30pm, nearly seven assailants barged into a jewellery shop at Sarafa Bazaar. They murdered the shop owner, Sunil, and injured his worker Bharat Bhushan, after opening fire at them.

The accused, Sandeep, was arrested by the crime investigation agency (CIA-I) team. As per sources, he had planned the entire crime with a motive to rob the shop.

The preliminary investigation revealed that the other mastermind of the crime has been identified as Simmy of Samana in Patiala district. The entire crime was caught in the CCTV cameras installed at the Sarafa Bazaar and the CIA-I managed to solve the case with the help of the footages collected from various spots.

In the initial interrogation, Sandeep disclosed that he had planned the crime with Simmy, who called assailants from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh. The assailants are hardcore criminals.

As per information, the accused is Sunil's neighbour, who had conducted a recce of his shop on November 21 and planned to attack the jeweller on November 23 to commit robbery.

The police are not disclosing any further information in this case due to ongoing investigation.

SP Astha Modi remained incommunicado on Monday. On the other hand, the Ambala ex-servicemen welfare association and the Ambala traders' association gave a memorandum to the SP demanding safety of residents. The district police have also made the Kotwali Bazaar police station operational which remained close from last 7 years.

Sub-inspector Jagroop Singh, in-charge of the Kotwali Bazaar police station, said: "Nearly 10 police personnel have been deployed at the station to increase security at the Sarafa Bazaar."