Patna, Feb. 25: Bihar police today punched fresh holes in their Chennai counterparts’ claim of shooting down four alleged bank robbers from the state in an encounter in the Tamil Nadu capital on Thursday.

Vaishali police have failed to trace Harish Rai, one of the four Biharis killed in the Chennai encounter, despite carrying out vigorous background checks in two villages called Purushottampur, as referred to by the Chennai police.

“We are sure that the Harish Rai mentioned in the Chennai police report does not exist in the two villages,” a source in the verification team said.

The report had identified one of the four men gunned down as Harish Rai, son of Panchi Rai, a resident of Purushottampur village in the Raghopur block of Vaishali, around 30km from Patna.

“There are two villages called Purushottampur in the Raghopur area. The two hamlets are separated by a stream. One of these villages lies near Madha, around 15km from Fatuha in Patna, and is the native place of one Panchi Rai, a homeguard posted at Gandhi Maidan police station in Patna.

The police went to his house and collected this information. The man’s three sons — Doman (16), Awdhesh (12) and Gunjan (10) — stay in the village. But Panchi has no son called Harish,” a senior police officer told The Telegraph.

The cops, as part of the verification exercise, also went to the other Purushottampur village, close to the Alamganj area of Patna City.

“This village also had a Panchi Rai, but he is dead. His four sons are called Saroj,
Sanjay, Ranjay and Manjay. Saroj works in Jehanabad, Sanjay and Ranjay in Haryana and Manjay, a differently abled person, stays in the same village. The police spoke to all the four over phone and verified that their father, Panchi, never had any son called Harish,” the officer said.

Both Purushottampur villages fall under Rustampur police station of Vaishali
district.

“We are checking with Joravanpur police station
about the existence of Purushottampur in their area. The state police headquarters provided us with the inputs for verification but we could not trace any Harish Rai,” the officer said.

Earlier, Chennai police had named one Chandrika
Rai as one of the four Bihari persons killed in the encounter. But a driver by that name was found to be residing at Maujipur village in Fatuha, around 25km from Patna.

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Alok Kumar had confirmed the same to The Telegraph yesterday.

The Chennai police had named one of the dead men as Vinod Kumar Sah, a resident of Raipura village of Fatuha, but the Patna SSP yesterday said police verification has found that no one by that name ever lived in that village.

With serious questions being raised about the encounter and discrepancies galore now, chief minister Nitish Kumar has already asked Bihar director-general of police Abhayanand and the home secretary to probe into the matter.

The officer said that Chennai police commissioner J.K. Tripathy had said that they had found a bag containing voter’s identity cards and driving licences of the men killed in the encounter.

Tripathy also added that they had despatched the same including photographs of the deceased to the Bihar police.

Meanwhile, attending a seminar at Magadh Mahila College in Patna today,
NHRC chairman Balakrishnan said: “We have come across the reports. We will send a team to Chennai to go through post-mortem and forensic reports and try to unravel the truth.”

Tamil Nadu police have transferred the case to the crime branch division of the criminal investigation department