Three owners of gold firm booked

Tribune News Service

Mohali, January 18

The Mohali police booked three owners of the gold company in case of recovery of 160 kg raw gold from a SUV, here.

The booked persons include Prabhat Chaudhary, a resident of Hamirpur, Amit Jain and Moti Lal Jain, both residents of Bangalore. The trio is the owner of AG Gold Refinery firm to which the recovered gold belonged, said the police.

“The owners of the company have been booked following interrogation of their three drivers, who were arrested yesterday along with 160 kg gold at a naka near Bakarpur village on the Airport Road”, said Mohali SSP Kuldip Singh Chahal.

The arrested persons included Rakesh Kumar, Surjit Singh and Vijay Kumar, all from Himachal Pradesh.

The SSP added that the owners were directed to appear before the police along with documents, (if any) related to recovered gold, but none of them turned up till this evening.

The trio claimed that they were in Bangalore and were in possession of all the documents.

“A kin of Prabhat Chaudhary gave us some documents that were being verified”, said PS Bhandal, the Superintendent of Police (Headquarters).

The SP added that during the preliminary interrogation, it was found that the gold was brought from South America. “Yesterday afternoon, the three drivers picked the gold from some persons at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at New Delhi to deliver it at Hamirpur”, said SP Bhandal.

It is to be noted that the Mohali police recovered the gold sticks, lying in nine boxes in a Hyundai Creta car, at the naka. As the drivers could not produce any document (related to the gold), except a waybill, they were immediately arrested by the police.

The police also investigated that the gold was meant to be brought in some Fortuner car as per the waybill, but that vehicle had taken another consignment from Delhi on Monday. The accused had not even declared anything about the consignment at the excise barrier at the entry of the Punjab-Haryana border.

Meanwhile, the arrested persons included Rakesh Kumar, Surjit Singh and Vijay Kumar before the local court, which has sent them to five-day police remand.

A case under Sections 420, 120 B has been registered against the six persons at the Sohana police station.