14 land in jail over group clash in Nayagarh

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhapur (Nayagarh), Apr 21:

The local court at Khandapada in Odisha’s Nayagarh district today remanded 14 persons, involved in yesterday’s bloody group clash at Natabarpur village,  to judicial custody after rejecting their bail petitions.

The 14 accused persons were arrested by the police earlier in the day following complaints lodged by both the warring groups.

Meanwhile, a team of senior police officials led by the SP Bhagyadhar Behera, DSP Satish Kumar Padhi and Khandapada SDPO Niranjan Patra arrived at the village this afternoon to take stock of the situation.

Talking to reporters later, the DSP said the situation in the village is tense but under control.

“To ward off any untoward incident, a section of Armed Police Reserve (APR) forces has been deployed in the village”, he added.

While the male members of the village have fled the village in fear of arrest, some senior citizens of the village are trying for a compromise between the two groups to restore normalcy in the village, reports said.

It may be mentioned that bitter conflict between the two groups which had been building up since the first phase polls, took a violent turn  on Sunday in which 18 people from both sides were injured.