RAIPUR: A day after former MLA Anup Kumar Sai confessed to double murder, Chhattisgarh police on Saturday detained his driver Barman Toppo who was an alleged accomplice in the crime and interrogated him while Raigarh court sent Sai to judicial remand for two weeks.
“Toppo of Baghrachakka under Brajrajnagar police limits was arrested from his residence and he has divulged details. On his inputs, the vehicle used for the crime and other things are being traced. We are planning to send teams to different places of Odisha to gather further evidence,” Raigarh SP Santosh Singh said.
Raipur police will also carry out Narco test to co-relate sequence of events and secure more criminal exploits from Sai.
The police are exploring if more might be involved in the crime. After securing strong circumstantial evidences in the murder of a woman and her minor daughter whose badly mutilated bodies were found near Sakambari plant in Chhattisgarh, Raigarh police arrested the former legislator.
The police are scrutinising further to substantiate proof on linking the accused with the crime.
“The murder took place in May 2016 and a year after, the name of Sai emerged, though not as an accused. But all these years, he avoided to respond to our queries. Meanwhile, we continued with our groundwork and inquiry. We finally got him. His consistent denial to the crime couldn’t withstand and finally he confessed after facing our circumstantial evidences based on a chain of events. We further got vital clues, said the SP.
Sai in judicial custody, driver Toppo arrested
The former legislator might have thought that the planned murder of the mother-daughter in Chhattisgarh might get entangled in complication owing to inter-state issue and he could get away.
“Instead, it turned counter-productive for him. Had the crime been committed in Odisha, the circumstances would have turned preferable for him as he continues to wield considerable political clout but in Chhattisgarh, nothing of that sort worked out,” a senior police officer, who was part of probe team, told The Express.
Meanwhile, Toppo’s family members claimed that he was innocent.