Rana escaped from Tihar jail, a high-security prison facility in Delhi on 17 February 2004. He went to
Moradabad and checked into a hotel. He then contacted relatives who sent him
₹1
lakh. From
Ranchi he applied for a passport in the name of Sanjay Gupta. During the two-month wait for the passport, he visited
Gaya and
Benaras. Rana then went to
Kolkata, where he obtained a three-month Bangladesh visa. Rana claimed that he took a house for rent at
Khulna and lived there, posing as Sanjay. After he fled to
Bangladesh, he bought a satellite phone for ₹16,500 so that he could contact his relatives and friends without being tracked. Throughout his journey — from
Moradabad to
Ranchi,
Kolkata,
Bangladesh and
Dubai and later to
Afghanistan from where he is said to have brought back the ashes of the Rajput king
Prithviraj Chauhan. He received approximately ₹15,000 to ₹20,000 per month and visited Kolkata often to get his visa extended. At times, he did this in Dhaka. On 25 April 2006, he was re-arrested from
Kolkata by
SIT, who tracked him down by his subscription to a Hindi newspaper, one of the few people in the
Dharmatala area who did so. ==Release==