Bengal police catch up with Hannah killer

KALIMPONG: Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, 36, on the run after the rape and murder of Hannah Foster, 17, in Southampton last year, was arrested by the Darjeeling police at Panighata near the Indo-Nepal border on Thursday.
Kohli, now clean shaven, was arrested after residents identified him from photos flashed in newspapers and on television channels.
Police initially believed that Kohli and his Nepalese wife Bharati Das (they had married just 23 days back) were trying to reach Sikkim.On Thursday morning, they raided a house at Pradhan Nagar in Siliguri after hearing that a man of his description had been seen there. But Kohli had slipped away moments before.
After zeroing in on Bharati''s relatives at Panighata, the police tracked him down at the bus stand. After his arrest Kohli insisted he was ''Mike Denis''.
Police said that after slipping out of his Patiala house on March 20 last year, Kohli had been to Mysore, Bangalore and Chennai before coming to Darjeeling five months ago. Posing as an NRI, he had married Bharati, who was not aware of Kohli''s antecedents. However, he had aroused the locals'' suspicion while attending several Hepatitis-B eradication camps with Bharati .
"Kohli will be produced before a Siliguri court on Friday," Darjeeling SP Rajiv Mishra said. "He will be eventually handed over to the British police." Hannah''s parents Trevor and Hilary, who are expected to arrive in Kolkata shortly, have expressed the hope that Kohli would be extradited soon.