Jodhpur cops crack 12-yr-old murder case, arrest three in Telangana, Bihar

Jodhpur: A team of 12 policemen from Jodhpur returned to the city on Wednesday morning with three men they arrested in Telangana and Bihar for the murder of an accountant in Phalodi 12 years ago. Two of the arrested men are brothers, and the third one is a cousin of theirs.To make this breakthrough in a case that had gone cold, the cops played multiple roles—coconut and milk sellers, shepherds and labourers— in the marketplaces and towns in Telangana and Bihar to zero in on the men who allegedly killed Kojaram, the accountant of a sonamukhi (senna leaves) factory in Phalodi on December 10, 2012.Jodhpur police had reopened the Kojaram murder case two months back, naming it ‘Operation Lallantop’ and forming a team of 12 policemen after getting a hazy lead in the absence of any picture of the accused. The three men arrested in Muzaffarpur in Bihar are Lal Dev, Naresh and Uday, said police. Passing mentions of terms like ‘henna of Sojat’ and ‘betting market of Phalodi’ in conversations in public helped police reach the suspects.“Just a month after these three men joined the factory in Phalodi, they killed the factory’s accountant, Kojaram, on December 10, 2012, and fled with Rs 1.5 lakh,” said Jodhpur range IGP Vikas Kumar, describing their arrest as a major success for police.Cracking the case was especially difficult as there was no lead other than that all three suspects were residents of Bihar. Two months ago, the file was reopened when a special team was formed in Jodhpur range. A police team was sent to Bihar, but no clues were found.“About a month ago, we received a lead that the mother of Lal Dev and Naresh had passed away. We sent a team to Bihar, assuming that these two suspects might be visiting their home. But the team did not find the three suspects there. The team, however, found a suspicious person who had been bearing all the expenses of the three suspects’ household,” said Kumar.The police team working on the case gathered information about that third person and scrutinised his bank account and phone calls. It turned out that the money was coming from his bank accounts in Punjab, Telangana and Bihar. Following this lead, a team of 12 policemen was formed and sent to these three states.“Finally, it was learnt that Lal Dev and Naresh worked as labourers in Telangana and Uday in Bihar. To identify them, the police team worked on their work sites in different roles and struck conversations about election predictions by the betting market of Phalodi and the henna production in Sojat. This led the three suspects into the police net,” said the IG.When police sent the three suspects’ pictures to the factory, old-timers there identified them as their workers years ago. “We arrested the trio and brought them t Jodhpur,” said Kumar.