The Kerala Police has formed a 20-member special investigation team to probe the case related to rapist Bittihotra Mohanty, who was arrested in Kannur on Friday six years after he jumped parole while serving term in a prison in Alwar. A local court on Monday sent Bitti to the police custody for ten days for further interrogation.
A four-man team of the Rajasthan Police reached Kannur on Monday evening and confirmed the identity of the son of former Odisha DGP BB Mohanty, Bittihotra Mohanty, who was working as a probationary office with a local branch of a public sector bank in Kannur district impersonating as Raghav Raj from Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh. Bitti would most probably be taken to Rajasthan for evidence-gathering on Tuesday.
The 20-member SIT, headed by Deputy SP KS Sudarsan, has been divided into four wings. While one wing will concentrate on the life and activities of Bitti since his arrival in Kerala while other teams will gather details about him from Rajasthan, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
The Rajasthan Police team on Monday carried out a preliminary round of questioning Bitti with the help of the Kerala Police. However, the Rajasthan Police would be able to get Bitti in their custody only after the Kerala Police completes investigations relevant to the cases registered in Kannur against him.
Kannur police have slapped four charges, including forgery and impersonation, on Bitti, who jumped parole in Alwar where he was serving jail for raping a 26-year-old German national in 2006. Though it has already been established that the banker arrested in Kannur is indeed Bitti and not Raghav Raj, the police have to be absolutely clear about this with the help of tangible evidences for which they will have to carry out inquiries in the three States linked to Bitti's life. Even on Monday, he insisted to the police that he was not Bitti but Raghav Raj.
"We are convinced that the man has been living the life of the legend, Raghav Raj, he had developed in the past seven years but we have to be absolutely sure," said a top police official.
Mohanty Senior is still maintaining that the person arrested in Kannur is not his son Bittihotra. Police sources said that the SIT would also have to look into the allegation that Bitti had been getting help from his father to live the life of Raghav Raj, through circuitous routes. They said they had got some solid evidences in this regard on Sunday.
Though Bitti's 'documents' showed that Raghav Raj was a native of Andhra Pradesh, most of the certificates in his name had been issued from institutions in Odisha and even the mother tongue marked in them was Odia. "It was strange that these contradictions had not come into the notice of the authorities in various institutions at any point," said a police official.