Three Assistant Sub-Inspectors of Police are among four Punjab policemen dismissed from service, over four months after they raided a priest’s house in Jalandhar without approval, a senior official said.

Senior police official of Patiala Mandeep Singh Sidhu on August 10 dismissed the four policemen, who are currently lodged in the Patiala Central Jail.

The four were part of a police party that raided the priest’s house in Jalandhar without any approval in April this year.

He said the policemen were dismissed following departmental inquiries.

Sidhu said the dismissed policemen include ASIs Joginder Singh, Rajpreet Singh, Dilbagh Singh and Head Constable Amrik Singh.

The Khanna police had in March initially claimed to have recovered 96.6 million rupees from six men including a church priest.

However, the priest had taken up the issue with the police and the Income Tax Department and sought that the entire 166.5 million rupees “seized” money be released forthwith.

The priest had claimed that the money was part of the business proceeds and accused the police of allegedly misappropriating some amount from the money they had seized from the premises.

The Patiala Police had held a depart-mental probe into the alleged role of ASIs Joginder Singh and Rajpreet Singh, whose statements helped the investigating team recover 46 million rupees. Two ASIs of the Khanna Police were arrested for allegedly pocketing 58 million rupees from the seized amount. A sum of 46 million rupees had been recovered from them so far.