Body of abducted cashier found in Odisha, three arrested

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Dhenkanal, Mar 5: 

Police today recovered the mutilated and decomposed body of a rural bank cashier from a forested area in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district.

The body of the cashier of Odisha Gramya Bank, Tube branch, Muralidhar Samal was found from the Kasiadiha forested area in Dhenkanal.

Police have arrested three persons in this connection.

Police had first detained these persons by tracking their mobile phone call details after Samal’s family members lodged a complaint in the matter. During interrogation, the trio confessed to have abducted Samal and had later killed him and had buried his body in the Kasiadiha forest. While they had buried Samal’s torso at one place, they had buried his head at a different place in the same forest, police said.

Samal was to return to his home at Bantala on Sunday which he did not.

On the very next day his family members received a phone call and came to know that he has been abducted and his abductors demanded Rs 5 lakh as ransom money for his release.

When the family members told Samal’s abductors that they wanted to speak to him over phone they were told that he has been drugged and was asleep and were asked to come with Rs 5 lakh to the forest to get him released.

“His family members tried to contact them on repeated occasions after they arranged the ransom money but they did not respond. Murali’s family members told them that they wanted to speak to Murali over phone and wanted pay for his release to which they said that they had given him a sedative injection and that he was asleep and would release him after they brought the money”, said Chhabiraj Biswal, relative of the deceased.

“We registered a case based on his family members’ complaint and tracked their mobile phones and tracked their whereabouts in the course of our investigations and caught the accused persons. They confessed to their crime and told us where they had buried his body after killing him”, Pradipta Kumar Bisoi, SDPO Hindol.

Police said further investigations in the case are on.