Sonar patti resident and auto driver Lakhan Verma and his old time friend, Rahul Verma of Jorapokhar area of Dhanbad who were arrested by police on July 29 in connection with the alleged murder case of Judge Uttam Anand on July 28 were involved in mobile phone theft from station road area and had stolen 10 phones before stealing the autorickshaw of Saguni Devi on July 27.

The revelations came during interrogation of the duo by a CBI team led by investigator Vijay Kumar Shukla as part of the investigation carried out in New Delhi last week.

Dhanbad district judge Uttan Anand, who was handling many cases of gangster killings, was allegedly killed on July 28 when an autorickshaw ran into him while he was on his morning run. CCTV has shown the vehicle going after him intentionally.

The duo revealed before the CBI that they had so far stolen 10 mobile phones in the last several years out of which complaints were not made by victims in altogether 10 cases.

CBI officials and Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), New Delhi team members investigate at Randhir Verma Chowk in Dhanbad on 7th August 2021. Gautam Dey

In the latest case of mobile theft carried out by the duo days before the death of Judge Uttam Anand, they had stolen three mobile phones from the clerk of a railway contractor Purnendu Vishwakarma from his Hill colony based Railway outhouse location.

Though, Vishshwakarma had made a complaint before Dhanbad police but a constable, Vijay Yadav of Dhanbad sadar police station who received the complaint did not register an FIR.

On August 20, Dhanbad SSP, Sanjeev Kumar, on receiving information through CBI suspended the constable on charges of negligence.

Lakhan Verma and Rahul Verma used to consume liquor and other intoxicating substances near the Dhanbad station road and carried out multiple mobile robberies near the station road and surrounding areas.

The CBI team which took up the case on August 5, a day after registering the FIR first took their remand of five day on August 6 of five days and again extended the remand to 10 more days on August 11.

The CBI again obtained court permission for remand of the duo till September 3 for carrying out brain mapping and narcotic test. Their brain mapping test was conducted at New Delhi on August 20 but their narcotic test is likely to be conducted at Ahmedabad in a day or two.

The CBI carried out a crime scene recreation at the site of the incident for two consecutive days on August 7 and August 8 during which the 3D laser scanning was also carried out to ascertain the vehicle speed, angle at which the vehicle moved while hitting judge Uttam Anand during the time of incident on July 28, 2021.