"Athithi Devo Bhawa (Guest is God)" continues...

He recorded their statements in the presence of Sudhir Kumar, Consul in the Indian Consulate and Australian Federal Police Agent Jackie Carroll. BK Sharma also recorded a supplementary statement of Judy—the prime complainant—incorporating additional information required to fill up the gaps left in her earlier statements before the Investigating Officer and the Judicial Magistrate.

Documentary evidence of all transactions made forcibly using the girls’ credit cards were collected including receipts issued by the jewellers. Registers maintained in hotels of Jaipur and Delhi showing entries connected with their stay alongside their captors were seized. Proof of purchase of Judy’s and Joan’s Kuwait Airways tickets to London were collected from a travel agent in Gole Market, New Delhi. Other members of the miscreants’ support group who had facilitated the prime perpetrators in the commission of crime were identified and arrested. Thus, the investigating team collected adequate evidence in order to charge-sheet the nine accused. A charge-sheet in the case was filed on June 5, 2002. Six of the nine accused had been arrested but Mike, Chiku and one Afzal Baig, who had received and kept the robbed cash, were absconding.

Lalit Aggarwal a.k.a. Mike and Afzal Baig surrendered before the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on October 3, 2002. Their police remand for ten days was taken and they were questioned thoroughly. This was followed by the surrender of Sayyad Sadakat Ali a.k.a. Chiku on October 13 the same year. A Supplementary Charge-sheet against the three was filed in December, 2002.

To be continued...