Police clueless in ASI, SI murder cases

Patna: Even after several months, police are clueless in the case of separate murder of two police officers near Fatuha and Barh in Patna district. The two cases have become more complicated because of cloned IMEI (international mobile equipment identity) numbers of mobile phones on which police stumbled upon during the course of investigation.
Assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Ram Raj Choudhary, who was posted with Telhara police station in Nalanda district, was shot dead on NH-30 under Fatuha police station on September 24.The ASI, in his uniform, was riding a bike to board a train from Fatuha to reach his home at Manihari in Katihar when the assailants shot him dead and looted his official arms and ammunition.
Earlier on April 18, sub-inspector Suresh Thakur, who was also armed and in uniform, was shot dead near Gorakshini at NH-31 under Barh police station in Patna while he was returning from Barh subdivisional court to Maranchi police station.
During investigation, police stumbled upon several cloned IMEI numbers being used by criminals which have left them clueless. A senior police officer, on the condition of anonymity, said, "We went through call detail records of at least 700 cellphone numbers and 1,000 IMEIs but did not get any clue. What confused us more was the use of cloned IMEI by several suspects whose names surfaced during the technical surveillance."
He also said both the killings were yet blind cases.
The shooters of Santosh Jha gang - Mukesh Pathak, Vikash Jha alias Kalia, Abhishek Jha and Nikesh Dubey - involved in the killing of two road construction engineers, Brajesh Kumar Singh and Mukesh Kumar Singh, in Darbhanga on December 26 last year and a supervisor, RP Singh, in Sheohar on December 2, 2015 also had dodged the police using the same technique.
So much so that police, after tracking some cellphones , reached Gujarat to nab the suspects but were surprised to find another person there. Later, with the help of telecom engineers and their firms, police came to know that cloned IMEI were being used by the four shooters to dodge the police while they were continuously holed up in Nepal. They were using Chinese cellphones in which IMEI numbers could be cloned easily. "I would neither comment on nor deny any such things. Such information is part of police investigation," said Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj, adding that an organized outlawed group is under police scanner.