AIZAWL: A special investigation team (SIT) of Mizoram Police is preparing a chargesheet against those accused in the gold robbery case involving Col Jasjit Singh, former Commandant of the 39th Assam Rifles, even as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) failed to respond to the state government’s proposal to hand over the case to the agency after three months.
SIT officials said they are yet to submit the chargesheet to the court of the district and sessions judge due to unavailability of certain test reports, to be furnished by the forensic science laboratory in Tripura.
“The chargesheet will be submitted to the court as soon as all evidence is in place,” a SIT member said.
Meanwhile, the Mizoram government awaits a response from the CBI regarding the notification to hand over the case to the agency on June 14, 2016.
The nine arrested Assam Rifles personnel, with the exception of Col Jasjit Singh, confessed to committing highway robbery and decamping with 52 gold bars worth Rs 14.5 crore. They said they had handed over the gold bars to their commandant, Col Singh, which the latter has denied.
As the case reached a deadlock because of Col Singh’s continued denial, police officials proposed that the case be handed over to the CBI.
The nine Assam Rifles personnel told interrogators that they waylaid a vehicle on the Aizawl-Lunglei World Bank-funded highway near Melthum on the southern outskirts of Aizawl on December 14, 2015. They then reportedly stole the gold bars the vehicle had been smuggling from Myanmar.
The gold bars were stashed at the residence of Naik Subedar KC Roy and the loot was handed over to Col Singh the following morning at his official residence in Aizawl’s Tuikhuahtland locality, the jawans said. The Colonel congratulated them on the success of their ‘operation’. “He paid them amounts ranging from Rs 70,000 to Rs 1,00,000 to buy their silence,” SIT officials said.
Col Singh countered this allegation by saying that he was in Silchar on December 14 and had sent his jawans to intercept a reported cache of arms being smuggled from Myanmar. He claimed he had no knowledge of the dacoity.
News Source: Times of India
