A Bhopal court sentenced Tarun Jinaraj, a Gujarat-based Malayali man accused of murdering his wife on Valentine's Day in 2003, to 19 years in prison for identity theft. Jinaraj, who absconded two days after his wife was found dead, had been living under a stolen identity in Bengaluru until he was arrested in 2018.
The court sentenced Jinaraj to two years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 5,000 for cheating by personation. He was also jailed for seven years for forgery of valuable documents. Jinaraj got another five years for forgery committed with the intention of cheating and another five years for the use of a forged document or electronic record.
Jinaraj, who lived under the identity of Pravin Bhateley, a college mate, had been working as a senior executive of a multinational company. Police said Jinaraj took the documents from Bhateley under the guise of arranging him a job. Jinaraj had managed to assume a new identity, remarry, and reside in Bengaluru with his second wife and their two children until the law finally caught up with him.
It was in 2003, two days after the body of his wife Sajini was found, that Jinaraj disappeared from Gujarat. Sajini was strangled to death allegedly by Jinaraj, who hoped to live with his girlfriend. Though he staged the incident as a burglary attempt, her family's suspicion fell on him. He vanished two days later.
He managed to evade arrest until police found he had been contacting his mother Annamma Chacko. Gujarat police pursued the link and found him living under the alias of Pravin Bhateley in Bengaluru. He was arrested.
However, Jinaraj managed to escape once again after he jumped bail. The Gujarat High Court granted Jinaraj a two-week temporary bail on the pretext of accessing his provident funds in Bengaluru. Under the terms of his bail, he was required to regularly update local police officials in Karnataka about his whereabouts and make bi-weekly visits to the nearest police station. He exploited these conditions to make his escape.
Also read: High-profile fugitive Tarun Jinaraj arrested in Delhi after second bail escape
He was re-arrested from Delhi within a month. Interestingly, Jinaraj had been living under the identity of 'Justin Joseph' in Delhi. He also had plans to escape to Australia.
The trial for the Sajini murder case is still going on in Gujarat.
