‘Wanted Dera man’ held in Bengaluru turns out to be Delhi techie

BATHINDA: In a major embarrassment to Punjab Police, a man detained by immigration authorities at Bengaluru airport on Tuesday, who was suspected to be absconding sacrilege cases accused and Dera Sacha Sauda member Sandeep Bareta, turned out to be a techie from Delhi.
The police team that reached Bengaluru to bring the ‘accused’ to Punjab after getting his transit remand, realised the faux pas only on Wednesday when they figured out that the detained man was, in fact, Sandeep Mannan from Delhi, a BITS Pilani graduate and employee of an IT firm in Bengaluru.
The commonality ended there. The Dera member’s address was Bareta town in Mansa, while Mannan had a Delhi address, said a cop.
However, neither the immigration authorities at Kempegowda airport and Bengaluru police, nor the Punjab cops probed all details before arresting Sandeep.
Meanwhile, cops at Kempegowda International Airport police station of Bengaluru maintained that the person identified as Sandeep Bareta was detained by immigration officials when his passport, produced for his travel to Shanghai via Singapore, was found to be a having a lookout circular against it. Bengaluru police were unaware of details of the suspect and acted as per rules, said sources.