FAZIKA: An LPG cylinder booking has helped police nab a former Captain of the Indian Army, who had been on the run for four years after his conviction was upheld by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in his wife's murder case.
Sandeep Tomar was arrested from Pandhurna district in Madhya Pradesh and was produced before a court here, which sent him to judicial custody on Saturday, a police official said here on Tuesday.
Tomar was posted in Abohar in 2013 when he allegedly killed his wife, Shveta Singh.
He initially attempted to describe the incident as suicide, but a detailed investigation later revealed it to be a planned murder, police said.
The trial court convicted him and awarded him life imprisonment in 2014, a verdict that was later upheld by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2022.
Tomar was granted bail in 2019, but did not surrender after the high court upheld his sentence in 2022.
Since then, he had been continuously changing his location and identity to evade arrest, police said.
Tomar's father-in-law, Ram Naresh, moved the high court in 2024 demanding that he be arrested.
The high court later ordered that the Punjab Director General of Police should file an affidavit by April 8, explaining the steps taken to take Tomar into custody.
The Fazilka Senior Superintendent of Police then constituted a special investigation team (SIT), headed by an SP-rank officer to arrest Tomar.
The breakthrough came when the Fazilka police traced a bank account linked to Tomar's PAN card, which he had used to book an LPG cylinder.
Acting on this lead, police tracked his location to Madhya Pradesh, where he was finally apprehended, police said.
One of the officials from the investigation team said that Tomar's bank statement also revealed that he was getting LPG cylinder refill from an agency in Pandhura.
The gas agency was contacted and the delivery address was taken.
This information was shared with the Superintendent of Police, Pandhurna, and the convict was immediately nabbed by the local police, the police official said. He was subsequently brought back to Fazilka and was produced in the court and sent to judicial custody.