Hand chopping case: Odisha police nab two more accused

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bolangir, Jul 12:

Six days after the spine chilling incident in which some youths of Raghavpali village under Sadar police station limits in Odisha’s Bolangir district in which a group of youths of the village chopped off the two hands of Kshirod Mishra, police today arrested two more accused from the village.

The arrested have been identified as Debaraj Pradhan and Anand Bhoi. With this, police have so far arrested five accused.

The three others, arrested a day after the incident, are Gopinth Bhoi, Ajit Biswal and Lingaraj Gidela of Raghavpali village.

The youths, who were arrested today, told the media that they are not involved in the incident as they were not in the village when the incident had taken place.

However, Bolangir SDPO Narayan Naik said the police have arrested the duo on the basis of the FIR lodged by the family members of the victim.

While the family members have named 12 persons in their complaint, eyewitnesses, however, have said the number of accused involved in the incident would be around 15-20.

“We have formed special teams who are raiding the nearby villages and other places in the district to nab the remaining seven accused who have absconded”, the SDPO said.

Replying to a quesion on the involvement of a police constable Dilip Pradhan in the incident, he said the police have investigated into the various angles on the possibility of his direct involvement in the incident and found that he was on duty at the district headquarters on the previous night and the next day when the incident had taken place in the village.

“As per the complaint lodged by the family members against the father and brother of Pradhan, we have arrested his father”, Naik said.

It may be recalled that the victim was on his way to take bath in a village pond in the morning on July 7 when some village youths hiding in the area, suddenly launched a murderous attack on him and chopped off his two hands with a sharp weapon.

Following information, the Sadar police rushed to the spot and admitted him to the district headquarters hospital from where he was shifted to VSS Medical College and Hospital in Burla. But as his condition began to deteriorate further, he was shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.

However, the doctors at the hospital have ruled out the possibility of grafting of his two severed hands as they have been badly damaged. The muscles in both the hands are dead as there have been several injuries on them. Considering this, any effort to graft these hands would pose a serious threat to his life, they said.