Breakthrough in twin murder case

PATNA: The police on Tuesday claimed to have made a breakthrough in the investigation of the mysterious twin murder of retired regional manager of the Punjab National Bank (PNB) Shyam Kishore Prasad and his servant about a year ago with four persons arrested in this connection reportedly confessing that they were involved in the crime.
Pravin Kumar, Kinkar Ladla, Satyam Vatsa and Dilip Jha were taken into custody on Monday night by the police during patrolling in an area under Alamganj police station.Prasad, who was posted at the PNB''s Parliament Street branch in New Delhi before his retirement, was murdered along with his servant at his house in Bahadurpur Housing Colony here. As an unbearable stink emanated from Prasad''s house, the police broke open its door and recovered the two bodies on July 19, 2003. Since then the police had been struggling hard to ascertain the criminals'' motive behind the crime.
"Prasad was a victim of the criminals'' lust for money. They raided his house in the hope of getting a huge amount of money as he was a retired officer. But they got only about Rs 5,000 in cash. They also forced Prasad to put his signature on a blank cheque. However, they could not withdraw money from his bank account," Patna City DSP S P Choudhary told ToI on phone, adding, "We are yet to interrogate them thoroughly."
According to Choudhary, it was then a new gang of criminals who had entered the city''s world of crime recently. "They administered ether to Prasad after taking the cash and making him to sign a blank cheque. In the meantime, Prasad''s servant entered the house and identified one of the criminals who used to loiter frequently in this locality. The criminals got nervous after being identified. They strangulated both Prasad and his servant and disappeared from the scene," Choudhary said.
He said on Monday night, the four arrested criminals had planned to commit another crime in the house of the owner of Prabhat Tara School in Patna City, adding, "We have recovered a country-made pistol, a few live cartridges and a small bottle containing ether."