TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: On the run for nearly two months, woman co-suspect Anuraddha Kapoor – wanted in the murder of cricket bookie Lakhpat Jain – was finally arrested after a dramatic scene at Calangute on Tuesday.
The woman, who dared police to arrest her via text messages while in hiding, was intercepted at Calangute with her mother and cousin Vibhor Khanna, who was recently bailed out in the same case.
“A constable noticed the three persons after they alighted from a car at Calangute. Khanna tried to escape when the constable alerted the police station. Kapoor then got into the car and drove off but hit another car,” North Goa Superintendent of Police Umesh Gaonkar told Herald.
The police personnel then caught the trio and brought them to the Panjim police station, where Kapoor is wanted in the criminal case. The mother-daughter duo had been already declared proclaimed offenders in a cheating case registered at Greater Noida.
Three persons – Khanna, Kapoor and an unidentified woman – were seen on CCTV camera footage walking out of Casino Pride. Kapoor’s interrogation could lead to tracing the third suspect. During a telephonic chat with Herald in April, Kapoor had conceded that Jain was a regular visitor to Casino Pride and was part of the VVIP list. “He was heavily into cricket betting,” she was quoted as saying.
According to the investigation, she was reportedly the only person accompanying Jain in a rented car, which was tracked at Altinho on the night he was allegedly murdered.
Sources said Kapoor had driven her car to Goa but toured in the GPS tracker car to and from the offshore casino.
The Panjim police had converted the unnatural death into a homicide case based on circumstantial evidence collected much after the murder on April 3. The post mortem had ruled out any injuries to Jain’s body.
The accused are booked under Sections 302 (murder) 201 (destruction of evidence) and 390 (robbery) of IPC.
