Chandigarh/Kochi: Two Punjab Police officials, who are suspected to have siphoned off over Rs 6 crore which was part of a larger amount seized by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from a priest's house in Jalandhar in late March, have been arrested by the Kerala Police from Kochi.

The priest, Father Antony Madassery, is reportedly a close aide of Bishop Franco Mulakkal who is an accused in the sensational case 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.

Punjab Police itself made the disclosure on the arrest on Tuesday, stating that two of its Assistant Sub-Inspectors (ASIs), who were absconding for the past one month with a sum of over Rs 6 crore recovered during a raid at a house, have been arrested

According to Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta, Kerala Police arrested ASIs - Joginder Singh and Rajpreet Singh - late afternoon on Tuesday after receiving specific inputs that two persons were staying at a hotel in Kochi after providing fake identity proofs.

Special Investigation Team head Praveen Kumar Sinha, who is the Inspector-General of Police (Crime), Punjab, has left for Kochi to bring back the two accused, the DGP said.

During interrogation, it was found that the duo had left Punjab after they were suspended in connection with siphoning of part of the money seized during the raid, police said.

Earlier, the SIT, probing the pilferage of the amount from Rs 16.65 crore cash recovered from the priest's house, had arrested one more ASI-rank policeman for his collusion with the other accused.

After the raid, police said the Income Tax Department officials were informed about the cash seizure and investigations were launched.

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.

However, police dismissed his allegations as "baseless".

The priest had reportedly claimed that the money was kept at his house because his employees had refused to go and deposit it in the bank due to the model code of conduct in view of the Lok Sabha polls.