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Sher Singh Rana, the prime accused in the Phoolan Devi murder case, was staying under an assumed name of Joy Tirkey, who is an assistant commissioner of police, to avoid detection when he was nabbed by a team of the special cell of Delhi police from a hotel in Dharamtalai in Kolkata.
This was disclosed by Dr K K Paul, commissioner of police, at a press conference held in New Delhi to announce the prize catch.
Newsmen who had gone to cover the event burst out into laughter when Dr Paul mentioned the details of the arrest.
Dr Paul laughed along with the journalists. Rana had escaped from Tihar jail in Feburary 2004 and had been eluding arrest since then.
According to investigations conducted so far, gangster Subash Yadav was providing him financial support. A satellite phone was seized from Rana.
Delhi police produced Rana in Tees Hazari court and got remand of eight days. He would now be produced on May 3.
Ajay Kumar, deputy commissioner of special cell, denied that Rana had been hiding in Nepal and it was the unrest in Nepal that forced him to flee to Kolkata. "No, our investigations have not shown anything of this sort," he said.