Awasthi was arrested by the sleuths at Ahmedabad yesterday and brought back to Guwahati and produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kamrup. The judicial officer ordered to shift Awasthi to Golaghat in Upper Assam, where he was a superintendent of police, when he allegedly murdered a youth in October, 1995.

The police officer had disappeared from Guwahati alongwith two others soon after he scented that his arrest was imminent, and the Assam Government issued a nationwide alert last year to track him down following his disappearance.

The IPS officer, according to the FIR lodged in Golaghat Police Station, had allegedly tortured one Jyoti Lohar - a timber businessman- to death. The dead body was suspected to have been thrown into a river in the outskirts the town.

Since Awasthi hailed from Uttar Pradesh, the Assam Police had alerted and sought help from the Uttar Pradesh Police but found no trace of him till he was finally tracked down at Ahmeadabad. Awasthi is said to have three batch-mates of his IPS days posted in the Gujarat capital, who had apparently helped him hide there.

The Assam Police, which brought him from Ahmedabad yesterday, was today granted permission to take him to Golaghat, about 300 kms from here, where he will be produced before a magistrate for further orders.