Kamal Ghorui
FAZILKA: Sandeep Tomar, a convicted former Army captain who had been on the run for nearly four years after being found guilty of strangling his wife, was traced by police in collaboration with NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid) and subsequently arrested from Pandhurna district in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday. Tomar was convicted of the murder of his wife, Shweta Singh, in 2013. The incident occurred at the Abohar cantonment in Punjab, just five months after their marriage. He initially claimed that she had committed suicide, but forensic investigations later revealed that she had been strangled. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court in 2014 and subsequently dismissed from the Army. After spending five years in Ferozepur jail, he was granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2019 while his appeal was pending. When the High Court upheld his life sentence in September 2022, Tomar failed to surrender and went into hiding. According to information, during his four years as a fugitive, he lived under a false identity. He reportedly worked as a real estate agent in Zirakpur, moved to Odisha, then Bengaluru, and finally to Pandhurna, part of the erstwhile Chhindwara district in Madhya Pradesh, where he was working as a manager at a juice factory. He had also reportedly remarried while absconding. The arrest of ex-Captain Sandeep Tomar was the result of a coordinated effort between Fazilka police and national intelligence agencies. Despite living under a false identity for nearly four years, two specific digital footprints led to his capture. During this period, Tomar moved between Zirakpur, Odisha, and Bengaluru before settling in Pandhurna. To sustain himself, he took up a job as a manager at a juice factory. While he used a fake name in daily life, he used his original PAN card to open a new salary bank account and used that account to book an LPG cylinder refill. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) collaborated with NATGRID to monitor financial records linked to his original identity. When his PAN was used to open the account, it triggered an alert. Police tracked the flagged bank account and noticed a recurring monthly salary deposit from a firm in Madhya Pradesh. The final confirmation of his location came when he used the same account to pay for an LPG cylinder refill. Police then contacted the gas agency, obtained the delivery address, and matched it with mobile tower data from the phone number linked to the account. Once his location in Pandhurna district was confirmed, Fazilka police shared the intelligence with the Superintendent of Police there. The local police team arrested him at his residence. He was subsequently brought back to Punjab on transit remand and sent to judicial custody in Abohar on March 28, 2026. The arrest of Tomar, a former Army captain, brings an end to a high-profile manhunt that had gained renewed urgency after the Punjab and Haryana High Court directed the Punjab DGP to provide an update on the case by April 2026.
