Ponty murder case: Namdhari booked for forgery

Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, main accused in the murder of liquor baron Ponty Chadha and his brother Hardeep, has been booked by the Punjab police crime branch in SAS Nagar (Mohali) on charges of submitting fake identity and residence proofs to get an arms licence from the state.

Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, main accused in the murder of liquor baron Ponty Chadha and his brother Hardeep, has been booked by the Punjab police crime branch in SAS Nagar (Mohali) on charges of submitting fake identity and residence proofs to get an arms licence from the state.

Namdhari, who is actually a resident of Bazpur in Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand, had procured a licence by citing his address as 'Master Colony, Chandigarh Road, Kurali', which was part of Rupnagar when the licence was issued in 1994, and then SAS Nagar after the new district was carved out in 2006.

He is in judicial custody in Delhi, where the Chadha brothers had died in a shootout at a farmhouse.

The Delhi police had recovered a 7.62mm pistol from his Bazpur house - believed to be the murder weapon - and the probe had revealed the licence details. A probe ordered by the Punjab government had pointed towards procedural lapses while issuing arms licences, and even a passport, to Namdhari and his associates.