Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh:
The Kerala Police team has allegedly found documents in Andhra Pradesh that prove the man it arrested last week is indeed Bitti Mohanty, a rape convict who was on the run for six years.
One of three teams the Kerala Police set up to investigate and establish the identity of the man, who calls himself Raghav Rajan, was tasked to go to Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh and find out if a Raghav Rajan actually exists. Sources said the cops found that the names Rajiv Rajan and Saraswati Rajan, who the man had listed as his parents while seeking admission to an MBA course in Kannur in Kerala, were fake.
On Friday last, the man was arrested on the complaint of his employer the State Bank of Travancore, which received an anonymous letter warning that he was in fact a rapist on the run. The police alleges that in the six years that he was underground, Mr Mohanty completed an MBA, taught at a school, and then got the bank job. (
Read: Faltering love affair led to Bitti Mohanty's arrest?)
After his arrest the man had allegedly confessed that he was Bitty Mohanty, but then retracted and insisted he was Raghav Rajan. The police believe that before he slipped into Kerala, Bitty Mohanty lived for about three years in Andhra Pradesh and acquired the fake identity of Raghav Rajan there.
He is now in the custody of the Rajasthan Police who are taking him by train to Jaipur. Bitti Mohanty was serving a seven-year jail term for the rape of a German national when he jumped parole in November 2006. He had been missing since.
In Rajasthan, his fingerprints will be matched with those on record for the German tourist's case. According to reports, he may be put through tests to match his DNA with that of his father BB Mohanty, a former Odisha senior cop who retired in 2010.
On Sunday, a Rajasthan Police officer who had travelled to Kerala identified the arrested man as the missing rapist.