Chandigarh: The Punjab Police Thursday claimed to have recovered Rs 2.38 crore out of the missing over Rs 6 crore siphoned off by two cops after a raid at the house of a close aide of rape-accussed Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal.

Khanna Police had in March claimed to have recovered Rs 9.66 crore from six men including a priest.

The priest, Father Antony Madassery, is reportedly a close aide of Bishop Franco Mulakkal who is accused of assaulting a nun. Earlier it was said that Fr Antony had directly intervened to hush up the rape allegations against the bishop last year. Both are based at the diocese headquarters in Punjab's Jalandhar city.

However, the priest claimed that the money was part of the business proceeds and the police had recovered Rs 16.65 crore from his home.

Father Antony Madassery is reportedly a close aide of Bishop Franco Mulakkal who is accused of assaulting a nun.

The priest had claimed the money was from his business proceeds. The embezzlement came to light after he complained that the police had recovered Rs 16.65 crore from his house, but they furnished information that only Rs 9.66 crore was found.

On Thursday, the siphoned off money was recovered from five persons on the basis of revelations made by two ASIs during their interrogation by the Punjab Police in Kochi, from where they were arrested, a spokesperson said.

Assistant Sub-Inspectors Joginder Singh and Rajpreet Singh, who were absconding since last month, were held from a hotel on Tuesday.

On Thursday, a team of Punjab Police took over the custody of the policemen from the Kerala Police.

Both were presented before a local court there which granted them transit remand and they are being brought back to Punjab, the officer said.

Punjab Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta, who immediately tweeted information about the recovery, said that the matter was being probed further and efforts were being made to recover the remaining amount.

In the operations carried out by the state police teams of different districts in Punjab, Rs 1 crore was recovered from Nirmal Singh, Rs 40 lakh from Surinderpal, Rs 20 lakh from Mohd Shakeel, Rs 30 lakh from Amrik Singh and Devinder Kumar and Rs 18 lakh from Sanjeev Kumar.

(With inputs from PTI)