Chandigarh, Apr 30 (IANS): Claiming a major breakthrough in the Jalandhar priest's missing money missing case, the special investigation team of the Punjab Police has tracked down two absconding assistant sub-inspectors to Kerala and both have been arrested, police said on Tuesday.

The ASIs, Joginder Singh and Rajpreet Singh, were arrested by the Kerala Police from a hotel in Kochi on Tuesday.

The police officials and police informer, Surinder Singh, face allegations of misappropriating Rs 6.65 crore, allegedly seized during a raid by the Khanna district police at the house of Father Anthony Maddasery in Jalandhar on March 29. Both police officers were missing with the money since the raid.

Punjab Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said that a special investigation team led by Inspector General, Crime and Investigations, Praveen K. Sinha, left for Kochi to bring back the suspects to Punjab for further investigations.

"A FIR against the ASIs and police informer, Surinder Singh, who has been since arrested, was registered by the SIT on April 12 u/s 392, 406, 34, 120-B IPC read with Sec 13(1)(a), 13(2) of PC Act at PS Punjab State Crime, SAS Nagar," a police spokesman said here.

"The absconding ASIs were tracked down to a private hotel in Kochi, Hotel Casa Linda, Fort Kochi, from where they were nabbed by the local police after specific information provided by the SIT. The duo had checked into the hotel a day earlier and had hired a single room for themselves. They were picked up by the police around 4.30 p.m.," the spokesman said.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had recently urged the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to order an independent probe into the incident.