Punjab police have arrested former Indian Army Captain Sandeep Tomar from Madhya Pradesh's Pandhurna district after four years on the run. He was convicted of murdering his wife in 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Police traced him through an LPG cylinder refill booking.
Sandeep Tomar had changed his identity and appearance to secure a job with a good salary. However, he used his original PAN for a new salary account and paid for Bharat Gas LPG refills from it. These led Fazilka police's SIT to track him via the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID).
In 2013, while posted at Abohar cantonment with 12 Bihar regiment, Tomar strangled his wife of five months, Shveta Singh, and tried to stage it as suicide. A local court convicted him of murder in 2014, sentencing him to life imprisonment; the Army dismissed him and he was lodged in Ferozepur jail. Granted bail in 2019 pending appeal, he absconded after the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld the sentence in 2022.
Fazilka SSP formed an SIT led by SP Aaswant Singh. Bank notices, transaction analysis, and call data records pinpointed Pandhurna. Contacting the gas agency yielded the delivery address, enabling local police to arrest him. An Abohar court remanded him to judicial custody on Saturday.
Post-bail, Tomar worked as a real estate agent in Zirakpur, then moved to Odisha, Bengaluru, and a firm unit in Madhya Pradesh, living with a second wife. An officer said, "The gas agency provided the address, leading to immediate arrest."